


In the Next Room

by SapphicScholar



Series: One Wall Away [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Maggie's POV, Next-Door Neighbor AU, Sanvers - Freeform, Slow Burn, Smut, but still pretty canon compliant, season 2a rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-15 14:15:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 66,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15414798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphicScholar/pseuds/SapphicScholar
Summary: Noise Complaint, the season 2a rewrite in which Alex and Maggie are next-door neighbors, from Maggie's POV, featuring the Maggie&M'gann friendship we deserve and plenty of time spent exploring how it is Maggie was so often one step ahead of the DEO without their money or resources. Of course, there'll still be the slow burn enemies to friends to lovers Sanvers arc alongside the Cadmus/Roulette plot, so if you're here for them, fear not!Updates of increasing length every Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: A few quick things before we jump into it! 
> 
> 1\. I recommend reading Noise Complaint, the first work in this series, before reading this one. You don’t have to, but I think it’ll make things more comprehensible.
> 
> 2\. Point 1 is because there’s a lot here that’s not in Noise Complaint at all—mainly stuff with Maggie, her relationships and friendships, and her own approach to working on the case—so I promise it’s not simply a rehashing of Alex’s POV with Maggie’s thoughts interjected into existing dialogue
> 
> 3\. Lastly, as a reminder, the first fic was titled Noise Complaint for a reason. Y’all know what’s coming (or rather, who’s coming) for the first several chapters when it comes to Maggie’s love life. If you need to skip over those scenes, go for it, but if you come at me in the comments section because it’s not Sanvers the whole time in a slow burn story, I’ll roll my eyes hard enough that I’ll be able to hear my mother yelling at me that they’ll stay that way from 400 miles away

Maggie groaned as she hoisted her canvas grocery bags up onto her shoulders, adjusting them so the straps didn’t dig into the spot by her neck that they had rubbed raw on the walk back from the store, and trudged the rest of the way up the stairs to her apartment on the fourth floor. Once she made it to the doorway, she let the two bags without eggs fall to the floor while she fished around in her pockets for the keys that she swore she had been able to feel the whole walk back but suddenly seemed to have disappeared.

While she was getting her door open, she spotted the landlord locking up the apartment next door. “Hey, Ray, how’s it going?”

The friendly older man looked up, waving at Maggie. “Can’t complain. Had a few showings of the apartment today.” He gestured at the door to 403.

“Oh, uh”—Maggie tried to pull her old neighbor’s name from somewhere in the depth of her memories, finally conceding defeat—“he’s moving?”

“Moved out a few days ago, actually.”

“Huh.” Maybe she should try to pay more attention to the people around her.

“I had one woman who seemed pretty interested today, though, so I think we’ll fill it quickly.”

“Hope so! Have a good evening.”

“You too.”

While Maggie put away her groceries, making a mental note to wipe down the fridge next time she had a free weekend morning, she considered the idea of a new neighbor. Maybe it would be the interested woman Ray mentioned. Whomever it ended up being, she hoped they were normal. The last guy—what’s his name—had been great. Best neighbor a girl could ask for, really. She never heard a peep from him. Only saw him maybe once or twice a year. Apparently he travelled for work a lot. But he seemed to keep the place clean when he was there, and not once had Maggie needed to deal with weird smells or bugs or anything coming from that end of the hallway.

At least the new person couldn’t be any worse than the guys who lived across the hall from her in her old building. The landlord swore they were adults, but they acted like overgrown frat bros who though the building could be Alpha Chi Whatever 2.0. They used to blast music at all hours and yell Van Wilder quotes down the hallway at each other and knock on Maggie’s door to leer and invite her over for “keg parties,” as if she was still some desperate 19 year old looking flashing her dimples at anyone she hoped might overlook her lack of an ID and serve her. And she swore they must have let garbage rot in there, potent as the smell was even from the hallway. She shuddered at the memory.

A few minutes after Maggie got her groceries put away, a knock sounded at the door, and she swung it open to reveal Darla leaning up against the doorframe, her lower lip pulled between her teeth as she took in Maggie’s tight jeans and the tank top she had stripped down to after sweating through the button up on her walk home from the grocery store and up the stairs. Goddam stairs. 

“Hey, you’re early.”

Darla shrugged. “Figured I could help you cook this time.”

Maggie’s mouth crooked up into a smile, watching as Darla’s eyes raked up and down her body. “That really why you’re here?”

“It could be…”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not really hungry for food yet…”

Darla kicked the door shut as Maggie dragged her forward by the belt loops, crashing their lips together as hands caressed hips and wandered up the backs of shirts. When Darla’s tongue flicked out and across Maggie’s lips, Maggie felt the barriers between them slowly slipping away, her mind opening up to Darla’s.

The first time it had happened, Maggie had shoved Darla away, gasping for air and hovering in the doorway on the verge of bolting. Even though she had known in theory that Roltikkons could forge telepathic connections with nothing more than their tongues, that knowledge hadn’t prepared her for the way it would feel—like someone gently slipping into the cracks and crevices of the walls she’d built up around her and seeing into all the places she tried to hide from the world.

Darla had muttered out an apology, but Maggie had waved it off. Darla shouldn’t have to apologize for something that was a part of who she was. “I just…it was more…intimate than I expected.” Certainly more intimate than she had expected when she was a little tipsy being pressed up against the wall of a dingy bar bathroom by the hot waitress she’d been chatting with for the past few weeks. “But what if we maybe, I don’t know, would you want to do dinner?”

At first Darla had been reluctant, shrugging off the offer and telling Maggie she didn’t have to. But Maggie had shaken her head, insisting that it wasn’t out of pity or a sense of obligation; she  _liked_  Darla, wanted to try to take her on a date. "Plus," she’d added, “this was nice. I think I just need a little time alone with you first.” Darla relented then, and a few nights later, they found themselves out to dinner at a little Indian restaurant that Maggie had found during her first few weeks in the city completely by accident after she made a wrong turn on her way home from the precinct.

Everything physical with Darla had been so much more intense than what Maggie was used to, but as they progressed, Darla opened her own mind to Maggie too, letting the telepathic connection flow both ways, giving Maggie glimpses into her own thoughts, her memories, the swirl of emotions weaving through her mind at a given time. And from the start they’d both agreed not to pry, resisting the temptation to delve deeper into the other person’s thoughts and unearth those things they weren’t yet ready to divulge. But even with long nights spent making out on each other’s couches and learning the feel and texture of the other’s thoughts, Maggie hadn’t quite been prepared for the way being able to be fully immersed, fully joined on a physical and mental level, would play out in the bedroom. And god, she’d come to crave it—to crave the way Darla simply  _knew_  what she wanted, what she needed, without her having to say a word. And she loved the ability to intuit what Darla wanted in turn, feeling the pangs of want and desire rolling off her, guiding Maggie’s hands and hips for as long as Darla’s mouth was on her.

That night they didn’t end up starting dinner until 9, but Maggie couldn’t bring herself to think of complaining.

\---

A few days later, Maggie heard the sound of excited chattering coming from the hallway and glanced out to find a blonde woman she didn’t recognize carrying a teetering stack of four or five boxes in her arms. Damn, she must have a lot of clothes. Or pillows. Or whatever lightweight knickknacks could fill up those big boxes. She thought she glimpsed another woman too, but it was hard to see much from the peephole, and she didn’t feel up to going out and having an awkward chat about the building with some stranger she might not ever see again if she turned out to be anything like the last neighbor.

The following few hours brought with them the sounds of new life from next door: a vacuum cleaner running, a hammer banging as furniture was assembled at a remarkable pace, the thump of heavy boxes being dropped on the floor. But then it was quiet again.

Over the next couple of days, Maggie heard her neighbor, but never once saw her. The late night unpacking got to be a little annoying, so she found herself crashing at Darla’s place more often than not, but she figured they’d be back to normal soon enough. It was only right to give the new girl some time to get her shit in order first, even if that meant a few more fights here and there with Darla about long, unpredictable hours at work that left Maggie running out of the apartment in the middle of the night or coming back in the early morning and waking Darla up when she had only gotten home from the bar a few hours earlier.

It didn’t help that Darla hated Maggie’s job, hated the people she worked with and for, hated the increased scrutiny being brought to bear on aliens in the community with the buzz around the new amnesty act and Supergirl’s swooping heroics always plastered across screens and newspapers all over the city. And Maggie got it—she did—but all of that made her want to be there even more, regardless of whether or not she was “required” to be at a specific crime scene. Because if they could get one more person in the room who gave a shit, surely that had to help. When Maggie made that argument, though, Darla had rolled her eyes and flicked her tongue across Maggie’s lower lip, drawing forth a whole litany of recounted memories of Maggie’s opinions being dismissed by her colleagues and her superiors as they honed in on aliens as the suspects, the aggressors, the threats to be contained, even when they were the ones found bloody and beaten on the side of the road.

On Friday night, in the middle of a dinner out with Darla, Maggie’s work phone buzzed.

“Seriously?” Darla arched an eyebrow at Maggie as she brought her phone up to check the caller ID. Captain A.J. Owens.

“I can’t  _not_  take it. It’s my job.”

Darla gritted her teeth and glared at Maggie as she slid her finger across the screen.

“Sawyer.” Maggie listened to her captain rattling off the details of a developing situation downtown with their new partners.  _Ah_. So that’s why it was an all hands on deck kind of deal. DEO would be there. Not that anyone had explicitly told them they’d be working with the DEO, but Maggie knew better than to believe the line about some new division of the FBI that dealt with aliens and always showed up with Supergirl in tow and carried enough fire power to bring down half a city. Yeah, FBI her ass. “I’ll be right there.”

Maggie cringed at the sound of a fork clattering down to a plate. “Don’t bother coming back to my place tonight.”

“Darla.”

“You can try to make it through a full date later this weekend, then we’ll see.”

Maggie nodded her head in understanding, tossing her napkin down on her seat as she jogged out of the restaurant to her bike and sped down side streets and back alleys to avoid the road closures she knew NCPD was supposed to be setting up. Nearing the address her boss had given her, she could hear the crunch of metal and concrete that she already knew would lead to a slew of new op-eds and blog posts from conservatives about how much damage aliens did to the city, forcing the taxpayers to cover the costs of their destruction, as if humans never cost taxpayers any unnecessary money.

By the time Maggie arrived, Supergirl was already on the scene, the streets having been closed off and bystanders evacuated. Of course, some of them still lingered, leaning over the barricades, their phones held aloft as they tried to film the encounter, hoping for a few quick bucks from one of the local news stations.

While her captain filled her in on the details, Maggie watched out of the corner of her eye as Supergirl dodged and weaved around the K’hund’s blows, landing a few of her own when he was off balance. Once she’d been briefed, Maggie jogged forward, her stun gun held aloft as she waited for an opportunity to get a shot off without interfering with Supergirl’s strategy. Before she could act, Supergirl caught him square between the eyes and knocked him out cold, yelling at Maggie to move back to safety. But she wasn’t about to let Supergirl go drop him off in some black ops prison where he’d never see the light of day again, confined to a cell with no rights and no chance for a trial, no chance for proper sentencing and a conviction that might come closer to justice than this.

“Wait!” Maggie barked at Supergirl as she hefted the K’hund into her arms.

Maggie waved her hands, trying to catch her attention. “Where are you taking him? Supergirl! He’s got rights, same as you! I said where are you taking him?” Maggie’s voice cracked a little on the last word as she was hit with a gust of wind from Supergirl’s take off. She tried chasing after her, one arm held aloft, but it was useless. “I’m gonna see you at his trial, right, Supergirl? You and your DEO buddies?” For a moment she swore she saw the caped crusader slow down, her head angling ever so slightly back towards Maggie, but then she was rocketing off again. Maggie slowed to a stop. Between the heeled boots she was still wearing from dinner and, oh yeah, the fact that the woman she was chasing could outrun a speeding bullet or whatever the fuck the phrase was, Maggie knew it was a lost cause.

Dejected, she trudged back to her bike, knowing she’d get hell from Darla not only for ditching their date, but for failing to do anything in a situation Supergirl clearly already had handled. Because she hadn’t done shit to help with the attack. And she hadn’t done shit to ensure that the K’hund, dangerous as he was, at least got to enjoy the rights the new Alien Amnesty Act was supposed to have granted him. Instead, she’d left her girlfriend alone in a restaurant for no good reason. Great. Really fucking great.

The ensuing fight with Darla that weekend and the message waiting for her on Monday morning about a scheduled meeting with an Agent Alex Danvers of the “FBI’s alien division” on Tuesday did little to improve her mood.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie finally meets Alex, plus some case work and an NSFW ending that you might recognize from another Chapter 2...

By the time Tuesday morning rolled around, Maggie felt marginally better. She had plans to see Darla that night for a date and had even told Captain Owens she needed off for the whole evening—a request he seemed more than happy to grant so long as she played nice at her meeting with a one Agent Alex Danvers, FBI. Maggie assumed she could take a loose interpretation of playing “nice” in a meeting with someone who was lying about absolutely everything.

After an hour or two of processing some forms from a few old cases she had closed out over the past week, her desk phone rang. “Hello?”

Jared’s voice came through. “Sawyer?”

“What’s up? You need me up front?”

“Yeah, some fed’s here to see you. You want me to send her to you?”

Maggie chuckled, imagining the look on the agent’s face. Jared wasn’t a bad kid, but he didn’t exactly have the best customer service, especially not when it came to feds. “Nah, I’ll come get her.”

Squaring her shoulders, Maggie braced herself for dealing with whatever entitled jackass they sent her way.

She did not expect the drop-dead gorgeous woman standing in the waiting room, her arms folded over her chest and her chin raised. The sun streaming through the windows caught her hair just right, bringing out flecks of gold and red. Maggie faltered for a minute before collecting herself and calling out to the woman, “You’re here to see me?”

“Officer Sawyer?”

And Maggie liked her girlfriend very much, but god the deep timbre of the agent’s voice did something to her. Not enough to make her forget exactly who she worked for and the kinds of bullshit she pulled, but enough to make her to smile as she corrected the woman. “ _Detective_ Sawyer, but yes, that would be me.”

As Alex introduced herself, spouting out rehearsed lines and already trying to reduce the NCPD’s role to that of “occasional helpers” on small cases, Maggie bit back a sigh. Apparently it was going to be one of those kinds of meetings.

She grumbled to herself as she led Alex back to one of the small meeting rooms, taking the chair at the head of the table and motioning for Alex to take the one with a busted wheel that left the seat wobbly and unstable. She didn’t really care how petty it was—not when she got to experience a moment of pure glee when Agent Danvers sank down, a flash of panic hitting her as her fingers scrabbled at the arm rests to steady the chair. Maggie barely bit back a laugh as she brought her hands up onto the table and asked, “What can I do for you, Agent Danvers?”

“I figured it would be good to meet after the first extraterrestrial threat in which you and your division…intervened.”

Maggie tried not to roll her eyes. Officers from her division had been on scene well before Supergirl, even if they didn’t exactly have superspeed on their side while trying to evacuate stubborn pedestrians and drivers more obsessed with cutting off the guy in front of them than with getting away from the big fucking alien tearing down buildings to their left. “Mm, right. The K’hund.”

“I…yes.” Alex narrowed her eyes, and Maggie could feel the energy in the room shift slightly. “Did Supergirl speak to you?”

That time Maggie couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Of course Alex would think she was just some dumb local cop who could only know a detail or two if it was spoon-fed to her by the girl in blue and red. “No.” Maggie tried to scale back the bitterness, remembering her captain’s warning. “You think I need Supergirl to give me information as basic as the kind of alien we’re dealing with?”

“It’s just, certain things aren’t exactly common knowledge.”

“Most things aren’t common knowledge. But once it’s your job, you learn them.” She wanted to point out that Alex probably didn’t spring forth into the world with a fully formed, innate knowledge about how best to capture aliens and lie to everyone about her job and her division, yet here she was, damn adept at it to those who didn’t know to look for the missing details, the things she wasn’t saying.

But then Alex was biting back, trying to preemptively claim jurisdiction on future cases and explain away her right to withhold information that Maggie knew would likely be vital to any investigations she wanted to run, and Maggie said as much, gritting her teeth and crossing her arms over her chest. They traded barbs back and forth, Alex constantly trying to couch her agency’s refusal to accept a partnership that might include a bit of oversight or accountability in language about “appropriate” handling. Maggie refused to cede a single point.

She watched the moment she seemed to find the button that left the previously cool and collected agent angry. “Do you have any idea about the K’hund you were dealing with?” Alex sneered at Maggie, shaking her head. “He’d been imprisoned before. Twice actually. Even if we ignore his prior records, here on Earth he went out on a spree destroying armored vehicles, abetting criminals in stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of gold, killing or seriously injuring almost a dozen guards in the process.”

And Maggie knew this—or, well, most of it; she wasn’t privy to his intergalactic records—but there were humans just as shitty out there who still got their day in court in front of a jury of their peers while their fate was decided. “So there are trial records?” Maggie had to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at the way all the muscles in Alex’s jaw seemed to tense at once.

Alex’s hands curled into fists as she glared at Maggie. “You have a jail cell to hold someone who can crumple a car into a ball of metal with his bare hands?”

Maggie could concede that point; they  _didn’t_  have the kind of facilities a place like the DEO did. But her concession did little to assuage the agent’s frustration. It was almost amusing until Alex went and told Maggie she didn’t know what she was talking about. Because Maggie could admit that she did stupid shit sometimes. And she had flaws—according to her exes, plenty of them. But ignorance wasn’t one of them, and she was done with the condescension and the assumptions that she didn’t know anything and couldn’t possibly understand the repercussions of the kind of policies she was advocating for.

“Oh really?” Maggie arched an eyebrow, her jaw working as she tried to keep from saying something that her captain would yell at her for later. “Do I still not know what I’m saying when I look at that fake badge of yours and call your bluff ’cause I can tell you’re DEO from a mile away?”

And that did it. Alex was up and out of the busted chair before Maggie could even react. She yelled after her, though. “What? Mad that someone might not let you get away with running a black ops site in the middle of nowhere?”

Alex ignored her words, and Maggie sank back into her seat. If that was their official liaison, the person tasked with being the public face of the organization…god, she didn’t even want to know what they had to look forward to in the coming months.

After a few minutes, Maggie pulled herself up and braced herself for a long conversation with her captain. Better that he hear it from her than from Alex’s boss or, even worse, Alex herself.

After a moment’s hesitation outside his office, Maggie rapped her knuckles against the door two times.

“Come in.”

“Captain Owens?”

“What can I do for you, detective?”

“Oh, I, uh, had that meeting with Agent Danvers.”

A.J. gestured at the chair and pulled off the glasses he had been wearing to read through a stack of reports. “How did it go?”

“It…went.”

The captain’s expression warred between disappointment and the kind of amused resignation that could only come from years of having tolerated the same kind of feds. “Should I be expecting a formal complaint?”

“Probably not,” Maggie hedged. “She came in here and tried to tell me that we would only get to help on small cases and that they could choose when we did and didn’t get all the facts of the case and that aliens wouldn’t need to be afforded the rights that President Marsdin specifically said—”

“Maggie,” he cut in. “I get the frustration, I do. But I think…well, you’ve worked with feds before. Sharing doesn’t come easily to them. And these rights? They’re new. We’re all still learning to adjust.” Maggie didn’t point out that a few people on the force—the ones who weren’t white or straight or cis or all the things that let people take their rights for granted—hadn’t required extra time for “adjustment” to the new status quo. “I promise that I will fight for the Science Division to be involved as equal partners moving forward, but it’s going to take some time and a little bit of patience as well all learn to adapt to our new normal, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And it’ll all go much more smoothly if we cooperate with them.”

“Understood.” She hated it already, but she understood when something was an order couched in the language of a suggestion.

“Now go get the rest of your reports filed. I understand you’ve got an important date tonight that isn’t to be disturbed.”

“Right.” Maggie could feel her cheeks warming slightly, but at least A.J. was being nice about it. He was a good guy at heart, even if she couldn’t see eye-to-eye with him on everything. But he’d always been respectful, formally reprimanding one of the lieutenants during Maggie’s first month there for making gay jokes in the middle of a training and pulling her aside later to check that she was okay and make sure she knew that those kinds of behavior wouldn’t be tolerated in his division. It had been unnecessary—she’d certainly heard a hell of a lot worse back in Blue Springs—but she’d appreciated the proof that he could be more than big words and promises about equality in the precinct, even if he couldn’t always, or even often, control how things went down when he wasn’t involved.

The afternoon passed by in a blur of paperwork and meetings and a few phone calls to follow up on late reports. The time for her to leave to get ready for her date with Darla came sooner than she would have liked, but she could do it. A fight didn’t have to mean the end of a relationship. She repeated that to herself like a mantra her whole time at the liquor store and while she got dressed and on her drive over to Darla’s place. She parked her bike and shook out her hair, hoping the helmet hadn’t undone her attempts at styling it, then straightened her jacket and strode forward to the front door.

Maggie clutched at the bottle of wine in her hands, taking a few moments to herself in the elevator before making her way down the hall to Darla’s studio. The door flung open before she’d even finished knocking, revealing Darla in black jeans and a blue and white checkered button up that Maggie had always liked on her.

Darla took a deep breath, blocking Maggie’s path into the apartment. “Tell me now: are you gonna run out on me tonight if your phone rings?”

“No,” Maggie promised. “I cleared it with my captain—didn’t even bring the work phone with me tonight.”

Darla’s gaze softened then, and she stepped back a few feet to let Maggie through the door. “I’ve got pasta on and garlic bread in the oven—even used that old family recipe you gave me.”

Maggie felt herself relaxing. She could do this. They could do this. Have a nice dinner and make each other the foods they liked best and bring bottles of wine that would complement the meals and talk about their days without getting bogged down in arguments about work and fall into bed at the end of it. It was nice. Maybe not quite the kind of thing Maggie had dreamed about—it felt a little wrong to have to keep such a big part of who she was, the ways she was fighting to make the world a little better, to herself—but dreams like those were for little kids and romantic comedies and princess stories. This was real, and she was happy, and that had to be enough.

\---

Early on Thursday afternoon, Maggie found herself at a back table in the alien bar with a skittish alien—one of her CIs—trying to coax a bit of information out of him. She’d gotten a tip off about some kind of new drug sweeping through the alien population, and Brian had put her in touch with R, suggesting he might know a thing or two. Of course, R had a real name, a name Maggie knew from the time they’d booked him for a bit of black market buying and selling, but he felt safer going by an initial, a letter that didn’t even exist on his home planet, and who was she to begrudge him that bit of security?

“I didn’t do any of it,” he said, his fingers drumming incessantly against the warped wood of the table.

“I know. Most people don’t come to me when they’re guilty.” That was a lie. Lots of them came to her and only to her when they were guilty. Sometimes because they hadn’t realized what was going on until it was too late, and they trusted her to help. Other times because they wanted to pin the crimes on someone else and saw her as some dumb human who liked aliens a little too much and might be used as a pawn in their power games.

“Know that bridge? Second one leaving the docks?”

Maggie nodded. She knew there was a little tent city of aliens that had cropped up under the first bridge; the second was a surprise, but she could picture it. Made sense as far as placement went. Close to water, which was good for a lot of species. Not home to many humans, and the ones who came and went didn’t give much of a shit unless they got in the way. Chance for some under-the-table work, especially for anyone strong enough to heft shipping boxes with ease.

“New market there.”

“What kind of stuff are they selling?” Maggie sipped at her water, keeping her voice even. In her mind, she rolled through the list of families she knew were staying beneath the first bridge, trying to think if she knew anywhere else they might settle until they got the market cleared out. The markets only ever brought in the worst kinds of beings—human and alien, alike—and considering she’d seen alien trafficking more than once, she really didn’t want to think of kids stumbling through there without a clue.

R narrowed all three of his eyes at Maggie. “Already told you. The drugs.”

“That’s it, though? That’s a big bridge for one thing.”

“I don’t know.” He tensed then, growing rigid in his seat as he turned slightly to one side, then the other.

“Is everythi—” But then he was slipping up and out of the booth, winding through bodies, and making for the back door. Maggie sighed. It wouldn’t do to chase him; he wouldn’t say anything more once he’d gotten spooked.

“How’d it go?” M’gann asked, leaning over the table to grab R’s abandoned drink.

“Got some leads to track down, at least.”

“Heard some rumblings about trouble brewing downtown near the financial district. You might want to go check that out first.”

“Yeah?”

M’gann shrugged, wiping her rag across the table. “Maybe it’s just a rumor, but it’s rarely that simple.”

“What would I do without you?”

With a chuckle, M’gann nudged Maggie’s shoulder. “Better to have you out there than the little men in black.”

“Ugh, anything is better than them.”

“Take it your new”—M’gann’s lips twitched—“partnership isn’t going so well.”

“You know…you could still consider trying to go talk to that other Green Martian. He might listen to you.”

M’gann’s features were suddenly pinched tight, and Maggie felt a pang of guilt for making her think about her past. “We don’t know that he’s DEO.”

“I’m just saying—he’s been spotted with Supergirl and suddenly it’s public knowledge that there’s some Martian running around working for the ‘FBI.’” Maggie put it in air quotes, rolling her eyes. “Obviously you don’t have to, but it might be nice for him to get a reminder that he’s an alien too, and maybe he should treat his fellow aliens a little better.”

M’gann swallowed heavily, her gaze falling to the rag she was twisting between her fingers. “It’s not so simple, Maggie. He…on his home planet he was subjected to the worst of what aliens could do. It is…unsurprising that he would be more wary than most humans. Untrusting.”

“Yet here you are. You’re trying to help them, not turn them all away or throw them into cells. And you went through the same thing.”

“Leave it be, Maggie.”

Maggie ducked her head at the sharpness to M'gann's voice. “Fine. I’m sorry.”

“You’re alright. If you weren’t always trying to find solutions, you wouldn’t be the Maggie I know.”

Before Maggie could respond, she felt her work phone buzzing in her pocket and fished it out. “Sawyer.”

She could hear crashing and roaring filtering in through the speaker right along with Officer Wu’s words. “Financial District. Definitely not human.”

“Got it. I’m on my way.”

“Be safe, Maggie.”

She flashed M’gann a crooked smile. “Always.” And then she was off and in the police cruiser, dialing the number that had been listed with Agent Danvers’ name on her meeting card. She wondered if it was even real. 

It rang through to voicemail three times in a row. Of course.

By the time she arrived, a small team of DEO agents was already on the scene with Supergirl, shooting and lunging at three hulking aliens that looked like nothing Maggie had ever seen before. But then they were shifting into new forms, and  _oh_ , that was why they didn’t look familiar. Shape shifters. Not White Martians—M’gann would have warned her about them. She rattled through her mental rolodex of species, finally narrowing it down to one or two. The aggressive style made her think probably Tormock, but she couldn’t be sure.

She edged around the barricade, slipping under it and crouching behind a dumpster where she had a clear view and an easy line of shot, if slightly further away than she would have liked with only her standard-issue gun on her.

For a minute or two, she did nothing but watch. Watch as DEO agents shot at the aliens, their bullets ricocheting back at them and leaving them vulnerable not only to the alien attacks, but also to their own weapons. Watch as Supergirl shot beams of heat vision out of her eyes and tried to freeze them and hit them with all her might, only to have them become invulnerable to each in turn.

It was while Maggie was watching Supergirl’s fight with two of the aliens at once that she heard a sickening scream followed by a barking command. “Man down! We need a med evac!”

She knew that voice. Danvers. She glanced over to the side, finding the woman dragging an agent soaked in blood off to a back alleyway. Well, at least she didn’t abandon humans to die. Apparently some part of her wasn’t all terrible.

After a few minutes, Maggie switched her focus back to the fight, pulling out her gun and aiming at the alien furthest away from any human agents. She waited until he began to transform, hoping those few seconds of change might leave him vulnerable. The first bullet struck his still solid body but did nothing. The second came a few seconds too late, missing him during the transformation. The third finally hit its mark, landing in the suddenly less-than-solid shoulder and causing him to howl out in pain. Maggie hoped he would stop, maybe hit the ground or try to retreat. But instead he went right back to attacking, leaving Maggie no choice but to keep shooting and hope that particular species didn’t make a habit of fighting to the death.

“Get out of here!”

Maggie looked up to find Agent Danvers glaring down at her. “I’m the first one that got a shot in! I’m staying.”

“This isn’t your mission.”

Fucking hell. “Only because you’re all too stubborn to admit you could use help.” Maggie stepped past Alex, seizing the opportunity to shoot at the same alien who she had already wounded, trying to further hurt him without shooting directly at anything vital. The bullet grazed across his back, and he faltered long enough for Supergirl to get in a blow. “See!”

“Do you even have a vest on for protection?”

Before Maggie could point out that it almost sounded like the big bad Agent Danvers gave a shit, she had leaned over to fire a round of her own, cursing like a sailor as they all ricocheted off the second alien’s thick armor.

Maggie shook her head, explaining her technique to Alex. With the amount of destruction these aliens seemed capable of, she figured it was worth it to have a few more people on her side as informed as possible.

To her credit, Alex adapted quickly, and Maggie was a big enough person to admit it. Only apparently Agent Danvers couldn’t even accept a compliment. “God, you’re infuriating,” Maggie grumbled.

“And you’re not?”

Maggie wanted to point out that even if she was, at least she was the infuriating one who finally gave them the information needed to stop the attack. But the aliens took the opportunity to surge forward—more aggressive than before with their numbers dwindling to two, one of them wounded.

Alex barked instructions over the comms, repeating what Maggie had told her and yelling commands to different groups and agents. Then she was gone, leaving Maggie in position behind the dumpster and out of the loop. Because of course she would take what she needed and then run off. Maggie rolled her eyes.

With the plan in place, the remaining two fell more easily, and Maggie didn’t have it within her to fight the DEO over the right to take them into containment. She’d talk to her captain about how they were being treated over in their little prison, but there was no way in hell the NCPD was remotely prepared to try to wrangle an alien like that into a cell it could destroy in milliseconds.

\---

Even after a long, hot shower and dinner, Maggie couldn’t get her body to calm down, her veins still pumping with adrenaline and her thoughts whirling around. She pulled out her phone, tapping it against her palm a few times before making a decision.

 **Maggie:** I’m still good for our date tomorrow, but any chance you’re around tonight?

 **Darla:**  I could be… What’s in it for me?

 **Maggie:**  Still wound up from earlier today. You seemed to enjoy it last time…

 **Darla:**  Think you’ll still be up for it in an hour? I promised M’gann I’d help her out for a bit.

 **Maggie:**  Yeah, just text when you’re on your way over.

True to her word, Darla texted an hour later, letting Maggie know she’d be up in 15. Maggie jogged into the kitchen, shoving the clean dishes back into the cabinets from the drying rack, then racing into the bedroom to pull the comforter up over the bed. Even if it was more of a booty call than anything, Darla deserved a nice space.

By the time Darla was at the door, Maggie’s whole body was buzzing with need—the need to feel another person up against her, to have someone’s mouth hot against her own, to feel someone come undone beneath her. She shuddered, trying to calm her racing heart before she opened the door.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Mags.” A teasing smile played across Darla’s lips. “Heard you might be in need of a little something tonight.”

“Please.”

And that was all the encouragement Darla needed, stepping forward and curling her hands possessively in Maggie’s hair as she dragged Maggie into her body. Maggie parted her lips, slipping her tongue into Darla’s mouth and feeling all of her thoughts and wants flowing out of her and into Darla, then getting them reflected back at her, amplified by the force of Darla’s own arousal.

She was up in Darla’s arms before she knew it, being carried across her apartment and into the bedroom, the kisses growing more heated with every step, the currents of desire passing between them growing stronger and stronger. Teeth dragged across lower lips and hands groped at any bit of exposed skin they could find. With a groan, Darla threw Maggie up against the wall by her bed, ducking her head down and trailing searing kisses along the length of Maggie’s neck, drawing needy whimpers from low in Maggie’s throat as she let Maggie see all the things she wanted to do to her.

“Fuck,” Maggie groaned as Darla shifted Maggie’s weight to one arm, bringing her free hand between them and slipping it beneath the waistband of Maggie’s pants. “Bed,” Maggie finally managed, letting out a huff of air as they hit the mattress together.

“You’re wearing too much, Mags,” Darla whispered, her fingers trailing up and across Maggie’s shirt.

“Could say the same about you.”

Darla let out a soft laugh, pulling off her shirt and tossing it to the side. “Better?”

“Getting closer,” Maggie murmured, dropping her head to kiss up and down Darla’s torso while her fingers reached around to unhook her bra. “Even better.”

Within minutes, their clothes had all made it to the floor or somewhere in the bed that they’d only discover later while playing the fun game of “Fuck, I’m late! Where the hell are my underwear?”

Maggie flipped Darla onto her back before she had a chance to react, grinning down at her. “Me first.”

And Darla looked ready to complain, but then Maggie’s finger was slipping inside of her, and Maggie’s lips were hot against hers, and Maggie’s thoughts were surging forward, nearly overwhelming her with their force.

“Fuck, yes, that, do that,” Darla gasped, lifting her legs up to hook them over Maggie’s shoulders the way they had been in one particularly vivid fantasy playing over and over in Maggie’s thoughts. And it was hard and a little rough and all so much of what Maggie had needed after her day that she could feel herself teetering on the edge by the time Darla was coming.

She didn’t fight Darla when she rolled Maggie over onto her back the moment Darla could feel her legs again, her mouth finding Maggie’s as she easily hooked two fingers inside of her.

Maggie swore she nearly blacked out at some point—probably around the time Darla’s tongue joined the mix—and by the time they were done, they were both sweaty and too exhausted to even think about getting up for anything more.

They fell asleep with the hallway light still on.


	3. Chapter 3

**Darla:**  What do you say to grabbing lunch together?

 **Maggie:**  Wow lunch and dinner in one day, gonna make a girl feel special or something.

 **Darla:**  Did you not feel special last night ;)

 **Maggie:**  I felt something, that’s for sure

 **Darla:**  So…lunch? Or you gonna keep your butt at that sorry ass precinct all day?

 **Maggie:**  C’mon, you know it’s my job, and it matters to me.

 **Darla:**  Yeah yeah

 **Maggie:**  But I can make it for lunch. What do you say to those food trucks down by the park?

 **Darla:**  Works for me.

 **Maggie:**  Can we meet a little earlier than usual? Maybe 11:30? I have to be back for a debriefing about yesterday’s attack

 **Darla:**  Of course you do

 **Darla:**  But fine. See you then.

Maggie put her phone down, wishing Darla would at least try to understand why the job mattered to her, even if she didn’t like it. She pushed those thoughts out of her mind, though, resolving to focus on finishing her report before their afternoon briefing.

She lost track of time as the minutes ticked by, managing to get herself out of the precinct with just enough time to race over to the park, arriving sweaty and a little out of breath, but still on time. Of course, Darla noticed anyway.

“You forgot?”

“No!”

“Why are you sweaty?”

“It’s sunny out.”

“Whatever you say, Mags,” Darla huffed, and Maggie felt her heart sink. She hated not being able to do anything right, even when she didn’t technically do anything wrong. They stopped at a falafel truck and settled in on one of the benches around the park’s perimeter to eat. At first the conversation was stilted, but eventually the frostiness between them thawed, and Maggie found herself smiling and laughing at stories Darla told about some of the bar patrons she’d dealt with the night before.

“What do you say to ice cream? My treat?”

“I’m pretty full, but go get yours. I see you eying the truck.”

Maggie grinned and pressed a kiss to Darla’s cheek. “Back in a few.”

As she ambled over to the ice cream truck, Maggie glancing around, reading the names of a few of the new trucks that had only showed up recently and looking to see if she recognized anyone. She noticed a flash of wavy red hair in line at the empanada truck, squinting until she caught sight of the woman’s profile, and, yep, definitely Agent Danvers. Small fucking city.

“What can I get for you today?”

“Oh, sorry.” Maggie shook her head, glancing up at the menu. “Could I do a scoop of the peanut butter chocolate in a cone please?”

The boy nodded, putting the order in the register and ringing Maggie up while someone else got her cone ready. As she reached out for it, she glanced back over in the direction of the empanada truck, finding Alex looking in her direction. Within a second of Maggie’s turning around, Alex dove to the ground, her fingers scrambling at the laces of her boots, and Maggie barely bit back a laugh at the idea that she could fluster the big bad federal agent with little more than an ice cream cone and a passing glance.

The rest of her lunch break passed by uneventfully, and Darla even walked her halfway back to the precinct before kissing her goodbye with a reminder about dinner out that night.

Maggie couldn’t help but feel good even through their afternoon briefing and the reminders about the DEO’s continued insistence upon taking point on all cases and leaving NCPD in the dark about everything that followed. But A.J. promised to get a call in to Director J’onzz to remind him that there were still certain standards that were to be upheld in the containment and care of their alien prisoners while Congress hammered out the details for new laws that would govern how crimes committed by newly registered aliens were going to be handled and tried. Maggie pushed for him to ask about the aliens who had been in containment for years already, sometimes for misdemeanors or crimes they had already done their time for on other planets, but A.J. held up a hand. “Slow, steady progress, Sawyer. We’ll get there, but one step at a time.”

Over a late dinner out with Darla, Maggie ranted about the “slow, steady” pace of pushing for change, frustrated with her colleagues and her work and her inability to change the system and make things better as fast as she wanted to, but Darla shut her down. “It’s not the pace, Maggie. It’s everything about where you work. If you don’t like it, stop complaining and quit. Go find something new to do where you can actually help.”

“I am helping! I should be allowed to be upset and talk to my girlfriend about it.”

“But these days you’re  _always_  upset about something at work. Why should I have to listen to you bitch about it day in and day out when there’s something you could actually do to feel better?”

“That’s not—it’s not the point.” Maggie shook her head, trying to remember what they had been talking about earlier. “What…um, what’d you do after lunch?”

“I went to my job. Which I like.”

“Darla.”

Darla dipped her head slightly. “Fine. I went in, helped get ready for a big shipment we’ve got coming in, called around to get quotes for someone to come fix that leak in the bathroom.”

“Did you find someone?”

“Eh, maybe. You know Cass? With the ears?” Maggie nodded. “Apparently his cousin does plumbing, and he’ll be in town next week. Need to figure out if we can afford to wait that long, but it’d be nice to give him the business. Cass certainly foots enough of our bills with how much he can toss back,” she added with a laugh.

From there, the conversation waded back into safer topics, and Maggie felt herself relaxing again. It probably wasn’t sustainable, but there was no use in destroying something that did, for the most part, make her days a little better. And when Darla came back from the bathroom and wrapped her arms around Maggie, her fingers dancing across Maggie’s shoulder blades and her warm breath ghosting against Maggie’s ear, Maggie remembered all the other reasons she really, really liked having Darla around.

They paid quickly, and Maggie was fairly certain she broke a traffic law or two in her hurry to get back to her apartment, but then they were behind closed doors, and Darla’s mouth was on hers, and Maggie let all the worries about the sustainability of their relationship slip away as Darla pushed her back onto the couch and dragged off her pants and kissed up the length of her thighs, teasing Maggie until her thoughts were desperate enough for Darla to indulge her. And oh how she did.

“Bedroom. Want to repay the favor,” Maggie panted.

“Think you can even stand?”

And Maggie wasn’t entirely sure that she could, but she sure as hell wasn’t about to let that teasing smirk go unchallenged, so she pulled herself up and dragged Darla back to her room, dropping Darla’s hand only to rummage through the box under her bed for the harness. “You good with—”

“Fuck, yes.”

Maggie grinned, pulling the harness on while Darla stripped out of her clothes, settling herself on the bed as she waited.

After several minutes of teasing touches and lingering kisses, Darla tugged on the dildo bobbing between Maggie’s legs. “Come on. Please?”

And Maggie could resist a lot of things, but her girlfriend saying please wasn’t one of them, and within seconds, she had Darla on her knees, the length of the toy slowly slipping inside of her as she worked her up. Within what felt like minutes, Darla was begging her for more, harder, faster, and Maggie swore the bed frame was on the verge of breaking, but she couldn’t bring herself to care—not when her girlfriend looked like that, not when the base of the toy was pushing up against her and leaving her on the edge. She ended up shuddering through her own second orgasm before Darla came, but she liked to think she made up for it later. And then again the following night.

On Saturday night, though, a phone call woke both of them only an hour or two after they’d finally collapsed back into the pillows.

“I swear to god, Maggie.”

“It’s your phone,” Maggie grumbled, still annoyed about being woken up. She listened as Darla’s hand scrabbled at the nightstand, finally locating the offending device.

“H’llo? … Really? Shit. … Okay, yeah, no, I’ll tell her. … No problem. Night, M’gann.”

“What’s up?” Maggie asked, her voice still thick with sleep.

“You want to play hero? It’s your time to shine.”

“Wha—”

“Some guys showed up looking for Scorcher. And you know her, she didn’t take too well to it. Apparently she’s torching her own house now.”

“Fuck.” Scorcher’s temper was legendary throughout the bar, and the old warehouses down where she lived would be the perfect powder keg for one fire to turn into a blaze that took down whole city blocks. “I’m going. I’m going.” Maggie stumbled out of bed, fumbling for the light as she pulled on a pair of jeans. Darla threw the tank top she’d been wearing the night before at her, followed by the leather jacket Maggie only vaguely remembered dropping to the floor. But the keys were still in her pocket, and that was one less step to worry about. Once she had her phone, she was out, waving a goodbye and promising not to be too late.

The night air did a better job of waking her up than anything else, and within a block or two on her bike, she felt like she was actually awake.

She saw the smoke billowing up from blocks away and took a deep breath in, knowing she’d likely have to deal with other cops, maybe even DEO if they got wind that an alien had been the cause of the fire in the first place. She parked her bike a few buildings away, sending up a little prayer that it could be spared from any further flames as she jogged down toward the building that was, comparatively speaking, barely smoking.

Holding her arm up over her eyes, Maggie squinted through the haze. “Scorcher? Are you here? M’gann sent me!”

“And why would I want to see  _you_?” Scorcher spit back, a sneer curling up her lips as she strode forward a few paces.

“I’m here to help.”

“By doing what? Throwing me in prison? Making me register myself like some kind of animal for them to spy on and send their people to kidnap in the middle of the night?”

“It’s not like that. I’m not going to bring you in. I just want to make sure we get you out of here and find out what happened with the people you said came for you, okay?”

“And what if they work for your precious little government, huh? Are you still gonna protect me then? Or weren’t you all rah-rah about your president and her bills and her words like they make even the smallest amount of difference.”

Maggie bit her tongue, holding her hands in the air and stepping forward slowly. “I get it. It’s not perfect, and there are problems that still need to be worked out.”

“The whole thing is a problem!”

“Maybe. But setting buildings on fire isn’t going to help. Burning your own home to the ground isn’t going to help.”

“It isn’t my home anymore. I could never feel safe there now that they know where it is.”

“I get that, I do.” Maggie let out a shuddering exhale, trying not to let her thoughts drift back to Blue Springs and how unsafe she always felt. “At least let me get you out of here and over to the bar? Or do you have a friend I could take you to? I don’t want them to take you, but I can hear the sirens. They’re going to come put out the fire, and they’re going to want to make an arrest for all the damage done, especially if anyone was hurt.”

“But not if I was hurt.”

“Please, Scorcher.”

But then the door was smashing in, agents swarming forward with massive guns held on their shoulders. “FBI! On the ground!”

“Stop!” Maggie yelled, knowing if the haze cleared and the dust from the door settled, she’d see Alex Danvers leading the pack. “Don’t shoot!”

“Sawyer?”

And there she was.

Making herself as tall as she could manage, Maggie glared at the agents. “Stand down, Danvers. I’ve got this.”

But of course she wouldn’t listen. Of course she couldn’t take an order to save her own goddam life. No, instead she came striding forward much too fast for the already paranoid Scorcher, who let loose a blast of flames that caught Maggie’s shoulder, making her gasp in pain. She barely even noticed the crash from the ceiling as Supergirl descended, encasing Scorcher in a block of ice. Not that the ice would last when it had flames melting it from the inside.

“Scorcher, stop!” Maggie yelled, the moment she broke free from the ice, steam rising all around her. Maggie held her hands aloft, wincing at the sting of the burn she suspected was probably being irritated by the rub of her jacket across it. “You don’t need to do this.”

“I’m the one that needs to stop?” Maggie sighed at the bark of laughter, knowing she’d lost the one chance she had to get Scorcher out, convince her that maybe a few humans weren’t quite so bad as she assumed. “Look around you! You’re delusional.”

And Maggie got it. It didn’t look good. It looked like dozens of assassins lined up in head-to-toe black uniforms with guns big enough to bring Scorcher down hundreds of times over. But she had to try. “They’re only here because of the fires. The men from earlier—they probably only thought they were helping.”

“And it’s all because of people like you. Alien lovers who think you know what’s best, think the government has any right to know who we are, where we live, what we can do. Why? So they can send out these teams in the middle of the night to come collect us? Experiment on us?” She shook her head, a look of contempt curling up the edges of her mouth. “I won’t be taken.”

Before Maggie could say a word about the kinds of options they might find for her—a new home, a repayment plan to cover the damages, a self-preservation defense to be made in court—Scorcher had turned, massive flames erupting behind her as she bolted for the back exit.

Maggie watched on helplessly as Agent Danvers yelled at Supergirl to take Scorcher out, and she did with a kind of ruthless efficiency, flying fast circles around her until she’d extinguished the last of the flames, leaving Scorcher whimpering on the ground, her breath coming in shallow gasps as her only means of protection was taken away. Not that she was going down without a fight, still yelling about what bullshit it all was as they tried to drag her away in cuffs, cursing at Supergirl and reminding her of just how disposable she could become the day she stopped acting like their little lapdog.

“Where are you taking her?” Maggie called out, ignoring the pain radiating up her arm as she chased after Alex.

“Arresting her.” She said it so matter-of-factly, like it didn’t matter that she hadn’t read Scorcher any rights or told her what was going on or why she was being taken or even where she was being taken.

Maggie grimaced at the sound of Scorcher’s yells as Alex led her outside and handed her off to members of her team to be thrown into the back of a van.

“On what grounds?” Maggie asked, trying to stall for time.

“Seriously?” Alex scoffed as she looked at Maggie like perhaps she was a complete idiot. “She burnt down three warehouses tonight and attacked federal agents.”

“Two of them were abandoned,” Maggie guessed. The ratio seemed about right for the area.

“It’s still arson! Besides, the third one had people in it—people who are in critical condition or suffering from severe burns. Speaking of…”

Maggie swallowed heavily as Alex gestured at her shoulder. She tried to shrug it off, but the movement of her shoulders stretched the already injured skin, and she couldn’t help but make a noise that had Alex insisting she see a doctor. And oh. Apparently the agent was a doctor too. Maggie wondered how she squared away what she did at work with the whole “do no harm” bit of the Hippocratic Oath she assumed Alex would have sworn at some point.

“If I come with you, you have to listen to Scorcher’s side of the story.”

“I’ll listen.”

“And I want a fair negotiation about the length of her imprisonment.”

“I’m not the one who makes those decisions.”

“Well then you’ll make her case to the person who is.”

Alex chewed on her lower lip before finally nodding. “Fine.” With that, Maggie let herself be led further outside. “I flew here with Supergirl, so we’ll have to get in one of the vans to go back.”

Maggie furrowed her eyebrows. For someone who worked at such an alien-hating organization, she sure talked about Supergirl a lot. And apparently let the hero hold her. And fly her around. Were they coming from the same place? In the middle of the night? Maggie shook her head; there were more important things to focus on. “I have my bike.” She fished her keys out of her pocket and pointed over at her Triumph.

For the first time since they’d met, Alex grinned. “Got a Ducati myself.”

“Oh really?” It seemed to fit. Pricy. Little showy. Powerful. So goddam expensive to fix. But still, Maggie found she liked the idea of this human side to Alex. The woman who rode bikes and ate empanadas and maybe had sleepovers with Supergirl.

“I, uh, yeah,” Alex stammered, her cheeks flushing a light shade of pink as her gaze seemed to drop a little further south than Maggie’s eyes. Ah. So definite possibility of another gay lady.

“Nice bikes.”

“Yeah, uh-huh.”

Maggie had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from snickering at the sight of the flustered federal agent who could apparently be cradled by Supergirl, National City’s resident lesbian icon, but couldn’t make basic conversation with another woman.

It wasn’t until Maggie was on her bike that Alex snapped out of whatever daze she had fallen into. “You can’t drive with your arm like that.”

“Well then how do you propose getting back?”

It was supposed to be a challenge—something that threw Alex off her game again—but then Alex was holding out her hand and smirking, and it was infuriatingly attractive. “You better hold on tight with your good arm.”

Maggie forced herself to look away. “Not a chance.”

Eventually, the threat of having to leave her bike at the mercy of the local volunteer firefighters’ discretion while they put out the blaze was enough to have Maggie scooting back and letting Alex take her keys. Once Alex was settled, Maggie wrapped her good arm around her and held on tight. The ride was smoother than Maggie had expected, even if they did make a whole lot of turns, taking them on some sort of convoluted journey due east straight into the heart of downtown. Part of Maggie wanted to point out that the extra turns didn’t do much when she wasn’t blindfolded, especially not when she still recognized all the city blocks flying by them. But whatever. She’d let the federal agent have her black ops rituals.

When they pulled up in front of the building that Maggie would never have pegged as a DEO facility, located in the heart of downtown National City as it was, she let out a sigh of relief. She and her bike were still whole, and she wasn’t even forever traumatized. Though she couldn’t resist one teasing jibe as she swung her leg over the bike. “Not bad…for a fed.”

Only Alex couldn’t manage a response, stammering out some jumble of words again before guiding Maggie inside and through security. Maggie wondered if security was always as simple as handing over a badge and getting a fingerprint and iris scan. Sure, it was way more high tech than the precinct, but she’d expected something like a full-body pat down. Rounds of interrogation. Maybe a blood oath. Then again, she hadn’t heard what Alex said to the guards, so maybe she was getting some kind of preferential treatment. A damn first.

Upstairs, though…that was both exactly what she had expected and more than she could ever have imagined. There were massive screens and rows of technology she didn’t even know existed. They walked past an armory stocked to bursting with guns that Maggie thought probably put the army’s to shame. Agents scurried past her at every turn, most of them ducking to the side the moment they saw who she was with. Yet again she found herself wondering who put Alex in a public-facing liaison role.

Of course, within moments it was confirmed for her that she’d have to sign forms swearing not to speak of the DEO’s existence or location, but she had assumed that moment was coming. She was actually surprised she hadn’t been served a dictionary-sized stack of non-disclosure agreements after her first taunting remarks at their meeting.

It took Maggie a few minutes to register the fact that Alex was speaking to her. Something about finding “the alien.” She looked at Maggie expectantly, then clarified: “How’d you end up at the warehouse?”

“Oh, Scorcher? Friend called me, told me some people had come banging on her door, saying they knew who she was, what she could do. She panicked, set the whole warehouse she was living in on fire. And then, well, she’s got a bit of a temper, and…I guess you saw the rest.”

Alex muttered about their different definitions of tempers as she nudged open a door to a futuristic-looking doctor’s office. Maggie pulled herself up onto the table, groaning as her ruined leather jacket was stripped away. She felt a pang of irrational anger at Darla for throwing that one to her on her way out. She could have been wearing some shitty sweatshirt instead.

“So what kind of friend is this?” Alex asked as she dug around in the cabinets, fishing out a few bottle and boxes. “A CI?”

“No…a friend.” She barely bit back a huff of annoyance. “Is it really so hard to believe I could have alien friends that aren’t criminals, Danvers? You and Supergirl are running buddies, aren't you?” She almost added in a little jibe about how she could see that they were more than that, if only to get the spluttering confirmation of the fact. What good bar gossip that would make… “Just because they don’t all put on a big red cape and swoop around taking pictures with puppies doesn’t mean they don’t have lives.”

“No, I…that’s not what I meant.”

“Fine.” But Maggie couldn’t help but notice the way Alex’s features tightened, her gaze falling as she shook her head. If she didn’t know better, she’d guess that the agent was upset with herself.

Luckily the burn of some sort of sterilizing agent dragged Maggie out of her musings, and she winced in pain.

“You know, most of my friends don’t give me third-degree burns.”

“Never said Scorcher was a friend,” Maggie managed between gritted teeth.

“Mm, even you have limits? What’d she call you—alien lover?”

 _Like you_ , Maggie wanted to point out. “Just because I don’t discriminate based on home planet…” But Alex looked confused. Maggie wondered if maybe she had stopped thinking about Supergirl as an alien. Aliens were the bad guys out on the streets, the ones who committed crimes and burned down buildings and attacked innocent civilians. Supergirl was the one who stopped them. A good guy. An honorary human. Maybe she was reading too much into it. So she shrugged instead. “It’s not that I date aliens exclusively. Though I do tend to prefer them to most humans.”

“Oh.”

“You have a problem with that?” Maggie arched an eyebrow in challenge, waiting to see how Alex would respond.

“I—no, no, that’s fine.”

Huh. Not the expected reaction at all. Maggie found herself more intrigued than she should be. It was always that curiosity that got her in trouble, that left her asking the questions that led to answers that no one else wanted to hear, answers that made her leave unwanted cards in lockers and answers that left powerful gangs chasing her out of Gotham. She shook her head. It really wasn’t the time to dwell. “On that note, are we almost done?”

Alex held up a finger, finishing up with the patch on Maggie’s arm before declaring it done.

Maggie jumped up and off the table, giving a final, forlorn glance at her coat. She should probably toss it. No use in spending more time bemoaning the destruction of a jacket that couldn’t be repaired—at least not properly.

“Why the hurry? Got a hot date at almost 5 in the morning?”

“Mm, not quite, but I do have a date still waiting for me in bed.” At least she hoped Darla was still there. She said she would be quick, and it had been over four hours. “I wouldn’t want to keep a lady waiting.” Maggie winked at Alex as she stuffed her phone and keys into the back pocket of her jeans. She left before Alex could remember that she wasn’t supposed to be driving with only one good arm. But it was fine. No crashes. No close calls, even.

She slipped quietly into the apartment, kicking off her shoes and sliding the chain lock into the latch. She tiptoed across the apartment, stepping over the few squeaky floorboards she passed on her way to the bedroom, then slipped under the covers beside Darla, letting out a silent sigh of relief when she didn’t wake.

Maggie woke up later than usual to a pair of jeans being thrown at her. “What the fuck?” Her words were muffled from sleepiness and the denim still half-covering her face.

“Are you kidding me?”

“What is it?” Maggie rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hands, willing herself to be awake and alert for whatever this fight was. “I wasn’t out that late, and it’s not like I woke you up this time.”

“You let them take her? I sent you to protect her, and instead you what? Handed her right over to them?” Darla’s voice rose with every word.

“What? No—no it wasn’t like that!” Maggie pulled herself out of bed, chasing after Darla as she stormed across the apartment towards the front door. “Darla, wait!”

“No! This isn’t the first time, Mags. It happens again and again! I’m sick and tired of sending my friends to you for help only to have them disappear.”

“I’m not—I did try to help! You know how Scorcher can be, and then by the time I was finally getting somewhere, Supergirl showed up. How the hell was I supposed to outrun the Girl of Steel?”

“I’m not—I can’t do this again.”

“Darla.”

“No. You figure out if you’re with them or with us, but until then, don’t come knocking on my door.”

“Please, wait.”

“Maggie, stop. Just stop. I can’t fucking do this. Not again.” Darla rubbed at her temples, finally turning on her heel and leaving. The door slammed shut behind her.

 _Fuck_.

Deciding she was too tired to deal with the reality of the breakup right then and there, Maggie locked the door behind Darla and shuffled back across the apartment and into her bedroom, flopping face-first down onto the mattress and letting out a long groan.

She managed to fall into an uneasy sleep for an hour two until the smoke alarm from next door startled her awake, sending her crashing to the floor with a litany of muttered curses. How fucking hard was it to make breakfast? She was fairly certain she’d set off the fire alarm fewer times in over two years living there than the new neighbor that she’d started thinking of as “Blonde with Boxes” had in two weeks.

Then again, perhaps she should be getting herself out of bed. No use wallowing. This could be a good thing. A chance for a new beginning. Not that it really felt like a good thing. Or anything new. In fact, it felt a whole lot like the same old shit.

She forced herself out of bed anyway, finally getting around to the pile of laundry that had been growing, spilling out over the lip of the hamper like a miniature eruption of socks and skinny jeans. With music playing softly from her computer, Maggie set to work sorting out the laundry by load, ignoring the few items of Darla’s she found still mixed in with her things. She even stripped the sheets off her bed and pulled off the pillowcases. It felt good. A little bit more like the fresh start she was trying to pretend that this was.

While her laundry was going down in the basement, Maggie set to work straightening up the apartment. She put away the dishes and sifted through the food in her fridge, checking expiration dates and tossing anything that was too far gone to still be good. She pulled out a pen and a pad of paper to make a grocery list, resolving to add more fruits and vegetables to it. Maybe break out that cookbook she’d gotten for a birthday present a couple of years back and see if there were new recipes she could try making.

She turned to the living room next, vacuuming behind the couch cushions where she’d managed to accumulate a fair amount of hair and dust and what sort of looked like crushed up bits of pretzels…not that she could remember the last time she ate pretzels. Then there were blinds to dust and mirrors and glass doors to Windex and counters to sanitize. By the time she was done, her laundry had finished in the dryers, and she busied herself with folding it, pulling out all of Darla’s clothes and putting them in a neat stack off to the side that she would deliver to the bar some day that week. Not yet. But soon.

She felt pretty good until she finished doing the laundry and realized she had nothing left to do. There were no urgent cases that required her attention. No more surfaces to be cleaned. No girlfriend to see. No M’gann to see, since she was working at the bar all day. And she definitely couldn’t go to the bar. But maybe a drink was what she needed. Not a ton of them, but something.

She fished around in her fridge for the couple of beers she’d found shoved into the back. They weren’t her favorite; some girl she’d been seeing for a few weeks several months ago had liked them. But they’d do. 

With a beer in hand, Maggie sank down onto her newly clean sofa and turned on some trashy, mindless television to distract herself. She found she sort of wanted pretzels. She also kind of wanted to text Darla. But that was a Bad Idea™, so she turned her phone to airplane mode and left it in the bedroom.

She made it three full hours before curiosity got the better of her, and she checked to see if maybe she had missed any notifications or texts.

The first one was from Darla: “I’ve got one of your jackets and a phone charger here.”

Maggie sighed and sent back: “I have some of your clothes here too. I could meet you at the bar?”

The response was almost immediate. “No, I’ll swing by your place before my shift. I’ll text when I’m outside.”

So that was how it was going to be. Fine. Whatever. Still better than when Emily gone to Goodwill and donated anything still left of Maggie’s in their shared apartment after the 48 hour “grace period” she gave her to “get your stuff and get the fuck out.”

It was then that she noticed the little red circle with a 1 in it that still lingered by her text messages. She found a message from a few hours earlier from an unknown number: “Hi Maggie. It’s Alex. Last night I forgot to have you sign those forms. Do you have time today or tomorrow to swing by? I could also come to the precinct.”

Oh good. The last fucking thing she wanted to do. She was halfway through typing out an angry message before she forced herself to put down the phone, take a few deep breaths, and reread Alex’s message. At least she was being accommodating what with the offer to come to the precinct. More than Darla had ever managed to do. Not that they were taking the same roles at all. Ugh. Maggie shook her head. She needed more sleep not disturbed by angry aliens and phone calls and now-ex-girlfriends and next-door neighbors who couldn’t figure out how not to set their food on fire. She settled on half-honest. “Not doing great today. Can I meet you tomorrow? We still have to have that conversation about Scorcher.”

Her phone rumbled against the table a few seconds later. “Fine. Precinct or here?”

Maggie considered it, finally sending back: “Meet me at the precinct, then we’ll walk. I’ll buy you a drink for fixing my arm.” It seemed only right. Darla hadn’t even asked about the big square of gauze taped onto her shoulder, and this woman she barely knew had at least taken the time to fix it up for her. Plus, getting away from work sounded like a good idea for making it more of a conversation about Scorcher and less of some official debate. Alex seemed the type to treat a negotiation like a win-lose situation, and Maggie really, really wasn’t in the mood.

The next message made Maggie groan. “No need. Besides, I’m sure your girlfriend will want to see you after your late night.”

She wasn’t quite sure why, but she ended up telling Alex that they had broken up. Maybe she’d have a little pity, be less of an asshole. Maybe.

Maggie tucked her phone away then, waiting for it to buzz with Darla’s text. She made it through two more episodes of some absurd home renovation show where school teachers had money for vacation houses, and contractors were all smiling, television-ready hunks who never jacked up their prices when they saw that they were dealing with women. Or maybe rich people got to deal with better contractors. Could really go either way. Maggie figured she’d never know. But then her phone was buzzing with a message from Darla telling Maggie that she’d arrived.

The handoff was awkward, their conversation stilted as they navigated the weird new space of “we used to date and fuck and see each other’s thoughts and try to make each other happy, and now we’re handing off piles of clothes and acting like it’s all fine and well because we’re civilized adults.”

“You, uh, working at the bar tonight?” Maggie asked, shifting her jacket and phone charger from hand to hand.

“No. I’m in tomorrow.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Darla nodded, her boots scuffing at the floor. “I guess I’ll see you around, Mags.”

“Yeah…yeah, you too.”

Maggie waited until she was sure Darla wasn’t coming back up before she got herself another beer and sank down onto the sofa to find out whether Bobby and Darlene were going to opt for the marble countertops or spring for the pool in the backyard.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we inch a little closer to that "friends" stage of the equation as Maggie and Alex head out for drinks

Monday dragged by at work. Maggie spent the first few hours trying and failing to write up a report about what had happened Saturday night, but she kept getting swept up in guilt over the fear in Scorcher’s voice that she so easily masked in condescension and anger. She wondered if Scorcher was being treated alright. The guilt quickly morphed into anger at Supergirl and the DEO. If she could have gotten a few more minutes, she knew she would have gotten Scorcher out of there. And, sure, okay, maybe she needed to pay a fine or something for all the damage. And maybe some amount of jail time was fair; after all, several people had gotten injured. But she deserved a trial. And a fair hearing. And a chance to find out who the men that had come for her were. And all that frustration burning in Maggie’s chest kept dragging her thoughts back to Alex Danvers and that frustrating spike of  _something_  she felt about her. Because, yes, there was anger. And annoyance. And maybe she didn’t hate Alex, but the woman infuriated her. But she also did something else to her…with the motorcycle ride spent curled around her back and the way her features had softened while she treated the burn on Maggie’s arm. And why had she even insisted on treating it? Why did she care? Maggie groaned, dropping her head to her desk. The slight hangover really wasn’t helping.

The afternoon went by even more slowly, and Maggie found herself willingly playing solitaire on her phone for a good chunk of time. Eventually the clock neared 6, and Maggie turned off her computer, pulling on the jacket she’d gotten back from Darla and stuffing her phone and keys into the pockets. She figured the weather was nice enough to wait outside, so she leaned up against the wall, watching the rows of cars whiz by. Once or twice she thought about yelling inside to get an on-duty officer out for a few people speeding enough to probably count as reckless driving, but she knew by the time they got someone out there, it’d probably be too late anyway.

Right at 6, a motorcycle turned off the street into the lot outside the precinct, pulling into one of the visitor parking spots. Maggie’s eyes traveled up the strong legs straddling the bike, the leather jacket zipped snugly around a toned upper body. And then she was pulling off her helmet and shaking out her hair, and Maggie was reminded of a very particular fantasy she had entertained a few too many times after being enamored by Dykes on Bikes at her first Pride.

When she noticed Alex staring back at her, Maggie forced herself to be an adult. A professional. An adult professional working with another adult professional in totally professional capacities. Also she still didn’t like Alex Danvers or her organization or her bullshit policies about aliens. But oh god, she was still staring, and now she hadn’t said anything. “Nice bike,” she forced herself to call out.

Alex mumbled her thanks, and Maggie forced her feet to move forward. “Mind walking?”

Alex shrugged, and Maggie started guiding them down the street, explaining that she’d had to adjust her plans a bit. It wasn’t that she’d really wanted to take Alex to the alien bar  _that_  night, but she had hoped to get her there at some point. Let her see that there were plenty of aliens who weren’t Supergirl but also weren’t criminals.

They made it through the awkward pleasantries and shrugged off comments about Darla before Alex brought up the forms. And Maggie knew they were the only reason that they were seeing each other, but she’d also sort of been enjoying the feeling of having someone she could pretend was a friend at her side after a breakup. Just two work buddies getting drinks and chatting. Still, Maggie promised she’d sign the agreements once they got inside. But then Alex made some comment about using the forms as a “bargaining chip” or some bullshit, like Maggie was really going to gamble away someone’s fucking life with her signature.

“Scorcher doesn’t deserve to spend the rest of her life locked up underground because she panicked. I’m not trying to fucking blackmail you.” The end came out more like a growl than anything else, and she watched as Alex seemed to shrink under the weight of it.  _Good_.

“No! No, I—I was trying to make a joke. That’s all.”

Maggie bit back angry comments about all the jokes that weren’t funny. Alex looked genuinely apologetic, and, Maggie supposed, she had no way of knowing that she was poking at the very issue that had led to the breakup.

After several blocks spent walking in silence, Maggie cleared her throat and pulled open the door to P.J.’s. “Sorry. I’m not—even if it wasn’t that serious of a relationship, it’s never fun to get dumped.” Though at some point, she figured she would have to get used to it. Happened often enough. “I don’t mean to take it out on you.”

“You’re fine, really. But maybe—maybe I could buy the first round?”

“What? No. I’m doing this since you fixed up my arm. Which, I didn’t say it before, but thank you.”

Alex’s gaze fell as she busied herself with her coat. “Don’t mention it.”

“No, I mean it, really. You didn’t have to. Not like I was there as a part of your team or anything.” Not like a good number of the cops she worked with as an actual member of the team would have done half as much either.

The look of genuine confusion in Alex’s eyes floored Maggie. “You were hurt, though.” She said it like it was so straightforward, like there was never a situation in which someone wouldn’t immediately be taken care of when they were hurt.

“Not always that simple. But thanks.” Not wanting to let things get emotional, Maggie grabbed her wallet. “What can I get you?”

“Um, whiskey? Neat.”

Hmm. Not terrible taste for a fed. “On it.”

She strode up to the bar, finding Terrell behind the counter. “Hey, how’s it going?”

“Can’t complain. Sun’s out. Tips are pouring in.” He flashed Maggie a grin. “See you’ve got a new lady friend with you.”

“Shush, it’s not like that.”

“So is she available?” He wiggled his eyebrows, earning a light swat on the arm from Maggie.

“First of all, I don’t think she plays for your team. Second of all, she’s kind of an asshole.”

“Didn’t say I had to  _date_  her, Mags,” he teased. “But fine, fine. I’ll leave your team with their assholes. And, you know…you don’t have to date her either…”

Maggie laughed and rolled her eyes. “Just get her a whiskey, neat.”

“You want your usual?”

“Please,” Maggie whined, stretching the word out into multiple syllables.

“What’s up? Long day?”

“Long weekend.” Seeing the unasked question, she shrugged. “Got dumped.”

“All the more reason to, you know, not date her.”

Maggie laughed. “Considering we work together, I think it’d be a bad idea.”

“But bad ideas are always the most fun.”

“You know I’m a cop, yeah?”

“All the more reason to make bad choices in your free time.” He left Maggie to think on it as he got their two drinks ready.

“Keep the change,” Maggie said as she slid a few bills across the counter, picking up the two glasses and a food menu to bring back to Alex.

“This is for the good advice, right?” he yelled after her.

“I guess we can consider it a down payment for whenever you start thinking of some.”

She chuckled, listening to him let out a dramatic gasp from behind her. “You wound me!”

“You’ll live.”

By the time she got back to the table, she found she was in a much better mood, and she handed over the menu to Alex, making a few suggestions about food, only to be handed a stack of papers that looked as big as some of the books on her shelves. “Ya know, I kind of feel like I’m getting the shit end of the stick. I bring you a menu. You give me legal documents.”

Alex smiled, and Maggie silently congratulated herself on the decision to drag the agent out of an office. It definitely helped. “You’re just lucky I got you the short version.”

Maggie opened her mouth before shutting it again. “Actually, I don’t even want to know.” She ducked her head down, poring over the documents. Alex had at least gone through the trouble of flagging all the places she needed to sign, and Maggie skimmed through the text as much as she could. It all seemed pretty standard. Basically boiled down to: say nothing about our existence or else. Once she made it through signing the forms, she pushed them back across the table to Alex and steepled her hands in front of her. “Now Scorcher.”

“You already admitted she’s not a friend. Why does it matter so much to you?”

Maggie wanted to point out that she wasn’t a friend of Alex’s, but Alex had cared when she got hurt. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders. “Everyone deserves a fair chance at justice.”

“And what about justice for all the people she hurt? For all the people she could keep hurting?”

Even though Maggie got that argument more than a lot of the others, she didn’t want to simply concede the point. Not with Alex. Not with someone who she was fairly certain had never learned to think of aliens as fellow beings with feelings and fears and reasons for their actions that didn’t boil down to: must harm humans. “Danvers, she got scared. And no, she’s not…pleasant. She’s mean and jaded, but you know what? Someone made her that way.” Maggie thought back to the years she’d spent preemptively disliking most people she met after leaving Blue Springs. It had taken a whole lot of supportive mentors and friends and professors and coaches to convince her that not everyone would reject her and that maybe they deserved the benefit of the doubt sometimes. “She had to grow up being different, and people…people aren’t all that great to you when you’re different.” She couldn’t help but notice the way Alex grew quiet, her mouth twisting to the side. She wondered if maybe she’d hit on something there. Even if Alex had gotten a better coming out experience, she probably still dealt with some amount of bullshit along the way. Figuring she could hit home the point a little harder, Maggie leaned in a bit. “Growing up a non-white, non-straight kid in Blue Springs, Nebraska, I may as well have been an alien. Felt like one at least. People didn’t want to listen to me explain that those differences didn’t make me completely unrelatable. And after a while? You kind of learn not to try anymore.”

Alex’s voice was soft when she replied. “You’re not out there burning buildings down.”

“No.” No, she’d shut down instead. She’d learned her lesson about visibility at 14, and it took her a long time to learn that there could be a kind of power in the hypervisibility she sometimes had. “But I’m not exactly showing all my cards either.”

“And what about the others we have locked up in containment? They killed people, sometimes lots of people. They wanted Supergirl dead. They destroyed whole buildings and brought city blocks crumbling down around them.”

Ah, there it was. They’d threatened someone she cared about. There was the personal connection that always made these kinds of negotiations so much more difficult. Maggie wondered if maybe Alex had started dating Supergirl before joining the DEO… Where did someone even meet Supergirl? That would have been before she became Supergirl… Did Alex even know she was an alien the first time they met? Maggie shook her head. She’d dwell on those questions later. “I’m not saying every alien is good. But not all people are either. With people, though, for the most part we try to give them a chance. Aliens…not so much. Sure, Superman and Supergirl fly around and save people and look like the pretty white kids you went to high school with. But some of them don’t have the option to blend in, and we’re not exactly open to them when they don’t.”

That seemed to get to Alex, and she sank into a silence that felt more contemplative than uncomfortable.

After a few minutes, a waiter showed up with their food, and Alex pushed a basket of sweet potato fries into the middle of the table for sharing. Maggie couldn’t help but smile. Apparently one little comment about liking them was all it took for Alex to remember and do something thoughtful. As Maggie popped a slightly too hot fry into her mouth, she tried to puzzle out the woman sitting across from her currently stuffing a large burger into her mouth. She had seemed so easy to read at first. Hated aliens. Liked being in control. Didn’t like sharing. Thought she was better than everyone else. Major asshole. And Maggie was fairly certain a lot of those things were still true, but Alex also listened to everything Maggie said, even when she didn’t agree. And she cared enough to ask how Maggie was doing and make sure she had a Kevlar vest on and take her back to patch up her arm and buy her food that she liked.

After a few minutes, Alex started speaking again. Softly at first, as if she were still learning the feel of the words, figuring out what it was she wanted to say to Maggie. “My job—I see the worst of what aliens do. We don’t get calls to come see aliens hiding out or taking care of their kids or working shitty jobs. We get calls to pick up the ones out in downtown National City burning buildings to the ground or grabbing people off the streets or killing bank tellers over money.”

“I get it, I do. It’s easy to get jaded.” Hell, most of the cops were jaded. Maggie was jaded about plenty of things. “That—well, that's actually why I had wanted to take you to the other bar.”

“Yeah?”

Maggie nodded. “Just, I think it might do you some good to meet aliens who aren’t wreaking havoc on the city.” Aliens that weren’t Supergirl, Maggie thought to herself.

“Maybe once things blow over with the ex.”

“Maybe then, yeah.” And Maggie found that she hoped they would go. Because if Alex was willing to listen, if she was willing to consider why she thought certain things and interrogate that line of reasoning, then Maggie thought maybe she deserved a chance. Of course, she continued to push Alex about Scorcher, asking her about who was processing the case and what exactly the charges were and whether they had kept in mind the kind of conditions that Infernians normally lived in when thinking about the design of her cell.

By the time they were on a second basket of sweet potato fries, the conversation had shifted into other topics. Maggie learned that Alex, like herself, was a bit of a workaholic. She was close to her adoptive sister—like, weekly hang out sessions and game nights and phone calls and incessant texting levels of close. Sounded like maybe she didn’t have a ton of other friends, but Maggie understood that. Came with the job and the unpredictable hours. Plus, Alex didn’t exactly strike her as the type to go bounding out to social events and engage in idle chit-chat for hours to make new friends. There was definitely more going on beneath the surface that Alex wasn’t ready to divulge, but talk of abandoned dreams and changing life plans suggested something big that Maggie couldn’t quite put a finger on.

In turn, Maggie found herself talking about some of her favorite trips, even mentioning Emily, which was more than she’d done in her couple of months with Darla. They found out they had a mutual love of camping, and for a moment, Maggie swore Alex was flirting with her. The mix of emotions playing out across Alex’s face was hard to read, though, so Maggie let it drop.

From there, they talked more about Alex’s sister—Kara, apparently—and some of the books they’d been reading and shows they’d been watching. Maggie learned that Alex’s tastes skewed much more heavily into non-fiction than her own, but they had a few shows in common that they chatted about. Maggie mentioned that she was planning to try cooking some new things, and Alex admitted to being a lot lazier in the kitchen than she should be—preferring takeout most nights after getting back from work.

By the time they left, it was well after 9, and Maggie realized that, other than M’gann, she hadn’t had a friend—not a date, but a friend—who she could talk to like that in a long time. Not that she’d really call Alex a friend, but she thought maybe… It might be nice to have someone who understood when she had to duck out at the last minute for a case or nights when she wasn’t really up for anything more than watching shitty television and eating pizza after a particularly bad day. And maybe she could be that for Alex too; it sounded like she could use a friend outside of her sister.

Maggie realized she wasn’t quite ready for the night to end when they got back to the precinct. She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans, her lips twitching slightly. “You, uh, you heading home?”

“I should really take these forms back to the office. Confidential information and all.” But she looked sort of disappointed when she said it, so Maggie took a bit of comfort in the knowledge that they’d both had a good time.

“Ah, true. Well, I guess…til next time?”

“Yeah. See you then.”

\---

On Tuesday, after another quiet afternoon at work, Maggie found herself at home without much to do, scrolling through Alex’s Facebook page. Not that she could see much. It was really just a profile picture that she couldn’t even click on to enlarge and one or two photos she’d been tagged in by people with less strict privacy settings. She hadn’t liked any pages, nor had she listed any information about herself other than the birthday Maggie was fairly certain was required to get a page. It wouldn't surprise her to learn that it was fake.

Eventually Maggie navigated back to her own feed, scrolling through and liking things here and there. Some girl she’d played club softball with in college had a baby. Some other friend was engaged. Someone’s dog got a new toy. Another person had thoughts that needed to be shared about President Marsdin’s latest press conference.

Then there was an event co-sponsored by the LGBTQ Center. Some kind of doubles pool tournament to raise money for an ongoing fundraiser for the Coalition to End LGBTQ Youth Homelessness. Well that sounded right up her alley. She vaguely remembered Alex mentioning that she played pool. Maybe…

Refusing to overthink it, Maggie pulled out her phone and shot off a text: **“** Hey Danvers, I had a great time last night. Seem to remember you mentioning that you play pool…there’s a doubles tournament Thursday night. Any interest in teaming up outside of work?”

She tried not to look down every few seconds to see if a response had come through, but it was also stressful trying to make new friends, especially when they were friends who also kind of disagreed with each other on a fundamental level about certain issues at work. Things were…touchy.

Her nervous musings were interrupted by the damn smoke alarm. Again. Luckily the neighbor got it to stop pretty quickly. At a certain point, Maggie assumed the mystery blonde must have mastered the art of putting out stove fires in a matter of seconds. Should partner her up with Scorcher, Maggie thought to herself, letting out a little snort of laughter at the image.

A few minutes later, Maggie’s phone buzzed.

 **Alex:**  Sounds great. Send me the details?

 **Maggie:**  Awesome! Thursday night, 8pm at Nine Ball’s.

 **Alex:**  Perfect. Hope you’re good at pool bc I don’t plan on losing.

 **Maggie:** Didn’t think you would.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we've arrived at the pool tournament competition... but not before a bit of time actually getting to explore the kinds of networks and friendships Maggie's built for herself

After confirming with M’gann three separate times that Darla was definitely not working on Wednesday night, Maggie showed up at the alien bar for the first time since the breakup. She got a few glares from customers she knew were friends of Darla’s. She thought Scorcher’s friends would probably have a better reason to glare at her, but then again, Scorcher’s temper didn’t exactly win her over many allies, let alone friends, so Maggie counted the secondhand anger of Darla’s crew as a replacement penance.

Spotting Elyssa, a refugee from Starhaven who lived under the first bridge with her little sister at one of the tables, Maggie walked over. “Mind if I join you?”

“Uh, no, go for it.”

Maggie slid in across from her, folding her hands in front of her. “How are you?”

“Okay.”

“Yeah? How, uh, how’s the living situation?”

Elyssa shrugged, twirling her long braid between her fingers. “It’s okay. We get by.”

“I heard there might be trouble brewing under the next bridge over.”

She nodded slowly, considering her words carefully. “Sometimes…it does seem that way.”

“You see anything worth acting on yet?” Maggie got a shake of the head in response. “And you and your sister—you feel safe?”

“We get by.”

“I have a friend with a spare bedroom. It’s a little ways out of town, but it’d get you inside somewhere—both of you. At least until we sort out the bridge?” She already knew what Elyssa would say before she opened her mouth.

“I appreciate it, but I can’t.” Ever since the last few Starhavenites got chased out of the trailer park, they’d all banded together under the first bridge. And Elyssa didn’t care that most of them were older and stronger than her and her sister; her sense of loyalty was too high to leave them behind while she claimed a measure of safety they didn’t yet enjoy.

“You’ll let me know if you change your mind?”

“I will.”

“And if…if they start taking kids…”

“We’ll make sure my sister is safe.”

“Okay.”

With that out of the way, the conversation went more smoothly, shifting into talk about Elyssa’s quest to find ingredients most reminiscent of those she’d used on Starhaven back when she helped her parents in the kitchen. Every so often she brought in different spices to Maggie, telling her which ones came the closest to a particular ingredient she needed to find and describing what was still missing. Maggie was pretty terrible at identifying them at first, but she’d started taking stock of different spices and scents at the market that popped up in the park near her apartment every weekend. She’d even started drinking tea—and not just the peppermint kind she found herself craving to help with cramps a few days a month—and frequenting teashops to find some of the more complex blends that Elyssa seemed to want. Whenever she found one that seemed close to something Elyssa had brought her, Maggie purchased a few ounces to bring back. Even when they weren’t close to what Elyssa needed, she always beamed at Maggie and thanked her, promising to bring her some of whatever new dish she was working on when it was finished. And for the most part, they were delicious. Sometimes a little strong for Maggie’s liking, but the blend of flavors was exquisite. Maggie wondered how long it would take after the Alien Amnesty Act’s passing for alien-owned bakeries and restaurants to start popping up, introducing new flavors and textures and dishes into the local foodie scene.

Eventually Elyssa excused herself—she needed to get back to her sister—and Maggie ambled over the bar to find M’gann. Wednesday nights didn’t often draw in large crowds, so Maggie settled in at the far end of the bar and waited for M’gann to finish preparing the two drinks a couple over in the corner had ordered before calling her over.

“How’s it going?” M’gann asked, wiping her hands, stll damp with the excess condensation from their glasses, off on her hips.

“It’s going.”

“Yeah? Still don’t want to see Darla, though…”

“She  _dumped_  me, M’gann,” Maggie huffed. “No one wants to spend all night getting dirty looks or, even worse, pitying glances.”

The corner of M’gann’s mouth quirked up into a smile. “I suppose I can give you that. So tell me, what are you doing with all that free time now?”

Maggie shrugged. “Cleaned the apartment. Watched some shit television.”

“Any new women in your life?” And the arch to her eyebrows left Maggie squirming in her seat. “As a reminder, unlike some people, I don’t need to lick you to hear those exceptionally loud thoughts.”

“M’gann,” Maggie whined. “You promised not to peek.”

“It’s barely peeking when you’re thinking that loudly. Besides”—M’gann shrugged with an affected gruffness—“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Thank you, but I promise I’m okay. And I promise Alex is just a friend.” 

“But you knew exactly who I suspected was the new woman.”

Maggie huffed and crossed her arms. “It’s not like that. She’s my infuriating counterpart at the”—glancing around, Maggie lowered her voice—“DEO.”

M’gann crinkled her nose. “You know, I’m starting to doubt your taste in women.”

“I told you, she’s not—it’s not like—I’m not interested in her!”

“Quite a bit of protesting going on there…”

“Because you still don’t seem convinced.”

“Are you?” M'gann shot back.

“Look, she’s…attractive. I can admit that someone is hot and fit and would probably be great in bed without wanting them in my bed. Because she also works for the evil empire, pretty much, and she’s also maybe banging Supergirl already. And okay, fine, maybe she’s a little more thoughtful than I gave her credit for at first, but she hasn’t totally changed or anything.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought about it a lot for someone who’s so convinced that this Alex is just a friend.” She held up a hand. “Mind you, this is most definitely not encouragement to go flinging yourself at someone evil.”

“Well she’s not…I don’t think it’s that simple.”

M’gann let out a little hum as she strolled over to the other end of the bar to help a customer who had wandered up.

While M’gann was gone Maggie tried to parse through her emotions. She was fairly certain it was just the thrill of maybe finding a new friend. Or a potential friend. A friend if she could start to think more critically about the way she was treating aliens. And, fine, yeah, a smoking hot friend. A smoking hot friend she could probably have really amazing sex with if the back-and-forth arguments from earlier were any indication. The heat between them transforming into a…

“I can hear those filthy thoughts from down here, Margarita!” Maggie let out a little squeak, and M’gann’s loud laughter echoed around the bar. “Oh dear, I was kidding, but apparently right on the money there.”

“I hate you,” Maggie grumbled.

“So,” M’gann began when she got back, “what are you going to do about this crush on your work enemy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you considered doing the sorts of things friends or dates do? Like, say, drinks, instead of shooting at targets trying to kill you and destroy the city?”

“We got drinks last night,” Maggie mumbled. “And, uh, I invited her to be my partner in that pool tournament down at Nine Ball’s tomorrow.”

“So she’s at least gay, then?”

“Didn’t have any questions about the bar. She even said, ‘Perfect,’ with an exclamation point and everything when she texted me back.”

“Well there’s step one. So is it a date?”

“I don’t…I’m not sure.”

“You should probably find out soon.”

“What if she’s dating Supergirl?”

“Then presumably she’ll turn you down quickly once you make it clear that it’s a date.”

Maggie nodded slowly. “Right.” A beat. “And what if she’s not interested?”

“How could anyone not be interested in my darling detective?” M’gann reached over, ruffling Maggie’s hair.

“Shut up.”

The conversation drifted back to other topics then, and Maggie forced herself to call it an early night, not wanting to be tired and hungover for her maybe-a-date that she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to be a date with Alex, her maybe-friend, the next night.

\---

By Thursday afternoon, Maggie was nervous. More nervous than she’d been in a while. She decided it was the uncertainty surrounding the whole thing. If she knew whether it was a date or whether Alex wanted it to be a date or, hell, whether  _she_  wanted it to be a date, it would all be easier. She kind of thought maybe she knew that she might like it to be a date. Or a flirty friend date. An almost thing that could maybe turn into a real thing down the line once Maggie got over the breakup and Alex got a bit better about how she treated Maggie and the NCPD and aliens. Not that Maggie would say no to making out with Alex that night. Or more. A girl had needs.

On her way home from work, Maggie grabbed a sandwich from the corner deli, figuring she’d save herself the hassle of cooking when she wanted a bit more time than usual to shower and get dressed and navigate the pain in the ass that could be Thursday night parking in the gayborhood. If she put on a pair of jeans she often wore when she wanted to be noticed, well, they were at the top of the stack anyway. And she could use the confidence boost after getting dumped.

After one last trip inside to grab the bags of clothing and canned goods she had forgotten at first for the donation drive, Maggie set off for the bar.

The ride over was easy enough, even if she did have to dodge around cabs and ride services that thought they could stop dead in the middle of the road without any warning, leaving every car behind them to screech to a halt or swerve into lanes of opposing traffic to keep from plowing into the suddenly stopped vehicles and the often inebriated passengers stumbling out of them without a care in the world. Eventually she managed to snag a spot around the corner from the bar.

When she got in, she glanced around, spotting a few familiar faces before she found Alex leaning on a high-top table, a pen in her hand and her tongue poking out between her lips as she concentrated on whatever she was writing.

“Danvers!” Maggie yelled when it seemed like Alex was finished.

She got an enthusiastic wave in response before Alex pulled her hand out of the air and shoved it deep into her pocket, her cheeks coloring a faint shade of pink. It was sort of adorable in a way that Maggie never expected. “Hey, I just signed us up.”

“Oh awesome. So glad you could make it.”

“Yeah—yeah, of course.”

Maggie shrugged. “Wasn’t sure if this was your scene, or…” Maggie left the rest unsaid: or if you were straight. Or if you were taken, maybe by a certain caped crusader. Or if you’d decided that we should stay work enemies and nothing more.

Alex didn’t really say anything in response, but she offered to buy drinks, and Maggie thought that was a good sign. She opted for beer; no use losing focus for the game—well, that was what she told Alex. Really she wanted all of her wits about her for gauging Alex’s reactions and trying to figure out if this was an almost date or not. Or if Alex wanted it to be.

“Hope your form’s better than that when we play,” Alex laughed, gesturing at Maggie’s mimed shooting of a pool cue.

Once the surge of embarrassment passed, Maggie forced herself to laugh. “Didn’t know my form was that bad.” Taking M’gann’s suggestions to pay attention to Alex’s answers to heart, she added, “Maybe you’ll have to show me how it’s done…”

And oh, she recognized that look. The slightly faraway expression. The parted lips and darkening eyes. The little shake of her head as if her thoughts had drifted somewhere else. Maggie could feel her lips curling up into a smirk as Alex stammered out something about getting the drinks.

“Wouldn’t want you to get thirsty, Danvers,” Maggie murmured at Alex’s retreating form, chuckling to herself when Alex froze for a half-second before stumbling forward once more. It didn’t answer every question, but there was confirmation enough that Alex was probably interested on at least one level.

Once Alex was up at the bar, Maggie claimed one of the high-top tables she knew would go fast once the bar filled up for the competition. She waved at a few of the people she recognized from other events or just from the bar in general as she waited for Alex to return.

After a few minutes, a drink appeared in front of her, and Alex slipped onto the stool across from Maggie. She raised her eyebrows, then gestured at two guys in the corner. Maggie thought she might recognize one of them. Ricardo, maybe… “I think they’re gonna be our real competition.”

“That so?” Maggie bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Of course Alex would be this competitive for a friendly game.

“I bet the two big ones don’t even play. They’re just wearing leather to seem like they do.”

Maggie coughed and spluttered on the sip of beer she’d taken, trying to force it down with another mouthful of it and wincing at the burning sensation that travelled all the way from the back of her throat up her nose. “I think the leather’s more about the whole bear aesthetic, Danvers.”

“What?”

“I…um, nevermind.” Maggie shook her head, figuring Alex was probably one of those gays who didn’t really delve too deeply into the whole history of the community and it’s sub-segments—at least not the gay male ones. “Tell me more about the competition.”

But then they were calling everyone to attention and doing all the announcements about the clothing and food drives. Right. Maggie jogged back over to the entrance where she’d left her bags, taking them over to drop off in their respective bins before joining Alex back at the table as the host gestured at the tournament bracket.

“Ready?” Maggie asked.

“To win? Always.”

With a low chuckle, Maggie led the way over to the board. “Well, looks like we’ll be playing those guys you thought wouldn’t be any sort of problem.”

“We got this.”

Maggie’s gaze dropped to the cocky smirk curling up the corner of Alex’s mouth. She thought it looked rather kissable. She wondered how that mouth would look—

“I’m Pat.” One of their burly competitors reached a beefy hand out, and Maggie had to tilt her head back to smile at him.

“Andy.” The other man waved at them.

“I’m Maggie, and this is Alex.”

When Alex didn’t say anything in return, Andy chuckled. “Ah, silent partner? Or is this more of a good cop, bad cop kinda deal?”

Maggie chuckled. How perfectly apt. “First time playing as partners, so we’ll find out.”

“Always a good preview of what’s to come.” Pat sent a wink in Maggie’s direction, and Maggie ignored the flush of heat she could feel coloring her cheeks.

“Alright!” Maggie’s voice was a little louder than she’d intended it to be, and she cleared her throat before trying again. “Uh, who wants to break?”

The first few shots of the game went well enough, even if Alex seemed a bit unclear on the meaning of a  _friendly_  competition. She was damn good, though, and Maggie could give her that. At least until she started insulting Maggie’s form and insisting she pay attention when she took her turn. As if Maggie wasn’t already paying attention. Well, okay, her gaze wasn’t exactly on the cue. But it was a very attentive gaze.

“Watch me,” Alex instructed when she got up for her turn again.

“Or maybe you just show me when it’s my turn…” Maggie ignored the exaggerated winks and thumbs up she was getting from Pat and Andy, focusing instead on the way Alex seemed to stumble before righting herself and sinking her shot.

It wasn’t until Alex stood up again that Maggie realized exactly what she had done. But she wasn’t a coward, and she sure as hell didn’t back out of the challenges she had set for herself, so she strode forward, cue in hand, and stepped in front of Alex, only to be told that an entirely different shot than the one she had planned was better.

While they were going back and forth about the logistics of the two shots, Andy chimed in: “You know, I think technically the partners bit is supposed to be away from the table, and you play one at a time.”

Pat was right there to assure them that they weren’t about to get all strict about the rules. “Oh don’t worry. We’re not gonna interrupt your foreplay.”

The squeak that slipped past Alex’s lips almost made Maggie giggle, but then they were lining up the shot, and Maggie’s hand was curling around Alex’s strong fingers, and Alex was draping herself across Maggie’s back, and Maggie swore she could feel every inch of toned muscle even through the layers of clothing, and, oh, that was something she definitely needed to feel again.

With no real help from Maggie, the shot rolled in perfectly, and Maggie beamed at Alex, who had slipped back several feet once the ball was rolling.

The next few games passed by in a blur of flirty comments and teasing touches and blushing skin that left Maggie feeling light for the first time since the breakup. And, sure, maybe it wasn’t a relationship or even more than two friends out flirting with each other, but Maggie needed it, and, if she were being honest, she wanted it with Alex in particular.

“You were amazing out there,” Maggie gushed, slinging an arm around Alex’s shoulders and dropping her voice as she leaned in closer, hearing the hitch in Alex's breathing. “And both of those teams”—Maggie gestured with a little nod of her head at the two pairs vying to play them in the final round—“I think we can take ’em no problem.”

“Mind if I get a picture of you and your girlfriend for the event Facebook page?” a blonde woman asked. “You two are so cute together!”

“What?” Alex’s voice cracked on the word, and she ducked out from under Maggie’s arm, putting a solid four feet of distance between them. “I—no—I’m not—”

The swell of embarrassment nearly choked Maggie as it crashed over her. Of course Alex would never think of her that way. Of course she would be offended at the smallest suggestion that she might. Of course Maggie had gone and fucked up and trusted yet another person who didn’t think about her that way, couldn’t even fathom it. She inched closer to the woman who had asked about the picture, forcing herself to smile softly. “Alex is a…friend.” That might be a bit generous, but it was something.

“Oh.” The woman’s eyes flicked up and down Maggie’s body, and Maggie let her spine straighten a little under the warm attention. “And you? You just visiting too?”

“No.” Maggie chuckled, her lips curling up into a more genuine smile. “Definitely not.”

“Jenna.” She stepped closer to Maggie, her eyes sparkling with something Maggie knew she wasn’t imagining—not this time.

“Maggie.”

“You’re in the final, right?”

Maggie nodded—not that she’d really have a great partner for the last round.

“Well, in case you need an incentive to win, what if I promise that I’ll have a drink waiting for you if you do?”

“Perfect,” Maggie purred.

But as the game wore on, Maggie wasn’t quite so sure what to think anymore. Because Alex wasn’t giving her the disgusted looks she expected. It wasn’t Eliza Wilkie all over again, offended that Maggie had dared to think she might be gay. And it wasn’t Madison McCartney, the drop-dead gorgeous femme who had laughed when Maggie thought she had a chance in college. No, it looked a lot more like panic, maybe even a bit of hurt, like Alex was folding in on herself. Nothing Maggie said seemed to help; it was like Alex didn’t even hear her. And she couldn’t be persuaded to stay by offers of drinks or apps or even ice cream. Instead she bolted, and Maggie figured if it was any of the things she thought it might be, it was probably for the best to let her go, let her sift through the first few waves of emotions on her own before she had to put on a show of strength for someone she didn’t know all that well.

“Still up for that drink, champ?” Jenna asked, her smile soft and her blue eyes sparkling and a little disarming.

“Uh…yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy this extra long weekend chapter!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: A section near the end of this chapter has some content that’s much more similar to Noise Complaint than we’ve seen so far, but it was a conversation where I thought it was important to see Maggie's approach and thoughts, even if you’ve already seen most of the dialogue bits there.

Within a week of the pool tournament, Maggie was dating Jenna. They’d stayed late at Nine Ball’s nursing their drinks as they chatted about work and what brought them out that night. In a show of forced nonchalance that Maggie knew all too well, Jenna had shrugged. “It matters, you know? I got lucky—Mom didn’t let my father tell her how to raise the kid caught kissing girls and moved out with me instead of”—she gestured at the door with a flick of her beer bottle—“kicking me to the curb or whatever.”

And Maggie wasn’t quite ready to go into all the gory details, but she nodded along. “I had an aunt.”

Jenna hadn’t required the extra explanation so many others had, simply tapping her beer against Maggie’s with a: “To human decency.”

Over the rest of the night, Jenna talked about moving to National City for her job—she worked as a paralegal, though she was studying for the LSAT and hoping to apply to law school now that she’d saved up enough money to go back to school without going into debt. Even though Maggie knew the hours weren’t quite so unpredictable as a cop’s, she had friends who went the big law firm route and knew they had plenty of nights when an important client demanded something, keeping the first and second year associates and paralegals there until it was done, and she hoped maybe Jenna would understand her schedule more than most. And when Maggie mentioned her job, mentioned the kinds of populations she worked with, Jenna hadn’t flinched or cringed; instead, she’d asked a few questions, and Maggie found she had missed that—missed getting to talk to someone about her work on a date-like thing.

As the evening wore on, the bar slowly emptying out, Jenna reminisced about getting involved at the LGBTQ Center, first as a volunteer at the front desk to try to meet people in the area, but then later taking on a larger role helping to run their social media presence.

“Well, you did a good job with that flyer—definitely caught my attention on Facebook and got me out here.”

“Then I think I owe myself a drink because it worked out very, very well for me.” Jenna’s mouth curved up into a smile, and Maggie found her gaze dropping down to those pink lips.

Forcing away the idea that maybe Jenna was too good for her or maybe Jenna deserved someone who wasn’t a workaholic who sometimes couldn’t help the aliens she was trying to help and who maybe sort of had trouble keeping her eyes away from a certain DEO agent’s ass, Maggie leaned forward a few inches. “What a coincidence… Because I think it worked out pretty well for me too.” And then Jenna’s soft lips were pressing against her own—barely more than a peck, really, but it left Maggie grinning like a damn fool.

“Maybe we do this again?”

Maggie nodded. “I think I’d like that very much.”

And they had, managing three dates in the first week even with an increase in alien attacks that kept Maggie on her toes and a creeping trial date that left Jenna working late hours.

The second and third weeks were filled with even more alien attacks, some from species not exactly known for their violence, and gory crime scenes, including one or two dead bodies that looked like the result of alien-on-alien violence. Maggie tried to moderate her involvement, letting her team handle one or two of the more straightforward-sounding cases without her so that she didn’t have to cancel yet another date with Jenna, and so far that approach seemed to be working. Jenna hadn’t minded, and even on the nights when Maggie had excused herself to go deal with a case, Jenna had left her with a kiss, inviting her to come back to her apartment when she was done for leftovers from dinner if she was still hungry (and she always took Jenna up on that offer, which led to a lot of nights spent dragging herself up four flights of stairs at two in the morning with her hair tousled and lipstick that definitely wasn’t hers streaked across her collar). The one or two times Jenna had called Maggie from her office, apologizing and saying that she wouldn’t be able to leave early, Maggie had offered to bring her dinner and had gotten a few stolen kisses in a little alcove that jutted off from the lobby to the building. All in all, it was good. Things were good. Comfortable. Easy. Just what she needed after Darla.

Of course, things with Alex were the opposite of good. It actually made her work as an NCPD detective a bit easier, since Alex wasn’t constantly butting in and trying to claim jurisdiction, but it worried Maggie. She caught flashes of red hair at their crime scenes, but it always felt like Alex was ducking and weaving her way through the crowds of cops and agents to avoid Maggie, not find her.

During the second week on a night Jenna had to be at work late, Maggie texted Alex: “Hey! I know work’s been crazy, but what do you say to a beer tonight?”

She didn’t get any response.

A few days later she tried again: “You ok, Danvers?”

Nothing.

She gave it two more days, finding herself increasingly distracted, the question always niggling at the back of her thoughts. Maybe being direct was the better choice with Alex. “Did I do something? I don’t…you seemed a little…not great after pool and then you bolted.”

Several hours later Alex actually responded. “Fine, sorry. Big case – can’t get away.”

And Maggie sort of knew that was both true and total bullshit. Because there were cases, yes, but no single big one consuming all of their time. There were always cases, though, and Alex used to reply. Maggie wondered if maybe she’d read Alex all wrong, if maybe Alex screamed gay loud enough to everyone around her that no one had actually sat her down and bothered to find out if she knew it yet. She couldn’t imagine it would be fun having those thoughts for the first time at 30. They had scared the hell out of her at 14, but at 30…at 30 there was so much more going on, so many unanswered questions that must have sat, heavy as bricks, in her gut for decades with no answers.

Eventually Maggie settled on something vaguely supportive but not so supportive that it would sound like she  _knew_. There was nothing worse than someone spotting weakness and drawing more attention to it. “Ah okay. Make sure to take some breaks. Even the big bad Agent Danvers needs sleep.”

Her phone went silent for a while after that, and Maggie found herself talking about it to Jenna. But it was hard because they’d both come out on the earlier side, and they’d both gone through something more like an outing than a proper coming out. Maggie had gotten caught giving a Valentine’s Day card to her crush at 14. Jenna had been caught kissing the only out lesbian in the whole school at 16. But Maggie wanted to be helpful to Alex, wanted to make sure that the agent who didn’t really seem to have all that many friends had someone there for her who had given some thought to the matter. So she tried reading online about later-in-life coming out experiences, and she tried to sit and think through what it might have been like if she had forced herself to try dating men for years, and she began showing up at more and more crime scenes when she heard the DEO was around, desperately trying to bump into Alex and make it look like her check-ins were casual and not at all because she assumed Alex had no one there for her.

Three weeks after Alex bolted in what Maggie had started thinking of as her gay panic moment, Maggie’s desk phone rang. “Sawyer.”

“I’ve got an FBI agent here to see you about a case.”

“Really?” She was fairly certain it could only be one person.

“Uh…yeah.”

“She have short reddish-brown hair and big eyes?”

“Um…I guess?”

“Yeah, alright, here I come.”

With a deep breath, Maggie pulled herself out of her chair and strode over to the lobby, intent on not making things weird for Alex, even if she’d barely heard a peep from her in weeks.

Maggie’s breath caught at the sight of Alex, her shoulders hunched slightly and her fingers fidgeting with her belt loops. “Danvers! It’s been a hot minute.”

Alex barely managed a smile in response, and Maggie’s heart fell at the sight of the purple bags under Alex’s eyes like she hadn’t exactly slept since the last time they saw each other. “Sorry, I, uh, I’m actually here to explain why.”

Wow. She hadn’t expected Alex to be quite so bold, but then again, it was a woman she’d seen carting around a gun the size of her leg more than once, so maybe bold was the only way she did things. “Yeah? You want to come back to chat?”

Silence.

“Alex?”

Alex blinked several times. “Hmm?”

Maggie softened her voice. “I said do you want to come back to my desk?”

“Oh, yeah.”

They strolled back down the hallway and into the bullpen together, and Maggie couldn’t help but notice the way Alex didn’t make eye contact or even the easy small talk that they’d started managing with one another. Her fingers were constantly in motion, her eyes jumping from object to object without seeming to see anything. They roved across Maggie’s desk when they arrived, and Maggie watched as Alex’s shifting gaze suddenly froze at the sight of the little rainbow flag poking out of her Gotham PD mug. It was small—something she got for free at one of her first Pride parades—and most people barely noticed it these days, especially now that the colors were starting to fade from age and sun exposure. But Alex noticed. Alex noticed in the way Maggie had started noticing all those things after she’d come out—the rainbow stripes along the top edge of a bar window; two men holding hands in the street; another woman with short-cropped hair who gave Maggie a nod as they walked past one another at the mall.

Alex cleared her throat, her gaze finally pulling away and landing somewhere around the corner of Maggie’s desk with the little chip in the wood that had been there since Maggie first arrived. “So yeah, about the case.”

“Which one?”

“Pretty much all of them.”

Maggie tilted her head to the side. “Now I’m intrigued.” A part of her assumed that maybe Alex was there under some flimsy pretense to get conversation started again after Nine Ball’s, but maybe she really had been that busy.

“Have you ever heard of Project Cadmus?” Maggie felt all of her muscles tense, her mouth drawing into a thin line. Everyone had heard of it. If the DEO was like the boogeyman in the alien community, Project Cadmus was like the fucking serial killer that made monsters under the bed look like cuddly friends you might want to arrange playdates with for your children. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I swear to God, Danvers, I can deal with you being DEO, but I am not teaming up with those—”

“No! No, we’re not asking you to.” Maggie felt a surge of anger when Alex had the audacity to smile, like Cadmus was some sick fucking joke. “Fun fact: I was actually shipped off to Cadmus once.”

Maggie’s mind reeled as she tried to process the disparity between the words being said and the tone in which they were being delivered. “What?” No one…people didn’t survive Cadmus. Well, people really weren’t supposed to be taken by Cadmus—aliens were—but they sure as hell didn’t survive it. Not that Maggie had much in the way of confirmation, since, well, no one fucking came back to talk about it over a beer like, “Hey, bro, did I ever tell you about the time Cadmus got me?” But here was Alex Danvers, doing exactly that.

“I—it’s a long story.” Alex rubbed at the back of her neck. “Kind of got arrested for treason. You know, the usual, right?” Alex chuckled a bit, and Maggie blinked. Who the fuck was this woman? “Got rescued before I could get there and ended up getting some intel on the organization that way. But now…well, now that they’ve officially split from the government and gone rogue, they seem to be doing even worse things.”

“I think they were already doing pretty horrific things,” Maggie grumbled. But then it hit her—“split from the government.” Jesus fucking Christ. So they were government-sponsored. Government-sponsored torture and murder and dissection of aliens like they weren’t lives worth counting as lives, lives capable of being lost and grieved by their friends and families. Maggie felt like throwing things or throwing up or maybe just punching someone.

“Or, well, yeah, probably. Like I said, I never made it, and even we don’t have access to the kind of stuff that went on there.”

“So glad our taxes paid for that instead of, oh, I don’t know, health care or social welfare or—”

“Maggie?” Maggie’s gaze snapped back to Alex. “I just—we should probably get to the case.”

“Sorry.” She wasn’t remotely sorry. She wanted a thousand-and-one more answers. She wanted someone in front of her to blame, someone who wasn’t the fucking near-victim of them that she could yell at.

“It’s fine. Now that Cadmus is rogue, though, they’ve declared a war against all alien life. We have reason to believe that some of these attacks with alien tech and even some of the attacks by aliens themselves are coming from them.”

Maggie struggled to keep up with the influx of information. How could they have aliens committing attacks for them? They were anathema among every alien community she’d ever gotten to know. “You think they’ve got aliens working for them?”

But Alex was shaking her head. “No…I think they’ve got something like the drug that was used on Supergirl last year.” Maggie nodded slowly. That made more sense. She always wondered about what had been used against Supergirl. She’d never been the hero’s biggest fan, but she still appreciated the good that she did for the city and didn’t think it was fair that anyone was being forced to endure some form of drugged-up mind control. “I think they don’t care how many human lives are lost if it turns the tide of public opinion against aliens.”

Maggie’s fist clenched around her pen. Of course the group claiming to be pro-human life would let hundreds, maybe even thousands of humans lives be lost in pursuit of their bigoted aims. “So what do we do?”

“I don’t know yet. We’re still gathering intel and trying to find an in of some sort. But we’re on high alert. Your officers should know that there may be human criminals that are armed with weapons much more dangerous than anything they’d normally see.” Maggie jotted it down, remembering the bank vault they’d found blown open by something none of their techs could identify. “And, well, perhaps even hostile aliens should be inspected for some sort of medical mistreatment before final decisions about punishment or imprisonment are made.”

Maggie lifted her gaze from her notebook, her eyes softening. She had hoped that Alex might listen, might start to think critically about the kinds of unilateral decisions the DEO made when it came to imprisonment, but she’d never imagined it would happen so quickly. In her years on the force, she’d only seen a few people as entrenched in the system as Alex had seemed to be change their views at all, let alone come out and make suggestions themselves about changing their way of approaching even those situations that would seem the easiest to dismiss as hostile aliens attacking the city who deserved to be locked up. “You coming around to my way of thinking after all, Danvers?”

Even the signs of protest and annoyance weren’t enough to change Maggie’s mind. “Not—I’m just saying, no one deserves to be drugged. And no one deserves to be judged solely on actions from when they weren’t themselves.”

Maggie shrugged and smiled at Alex. “It’s a start.” It struck her then that Alex had probably seen Supergirl during and after the whole drug incident. Was it Red K they had called it? Something like that. And maybe they weren’t dating—clearly they weren’t dating if Alex didn’t know she was gay yet—but they were obviously close. She wondered if Cadmus had been involved in that as well.

“Anything you need me to do?” Maggie asked, half hoping that Alex would let the conversation drift to personal topics because Maggie had been doing her research, and she wanted to help if she could.

“You talked about having some alien friends. Any chance you could keep an ear to the ground, try to find out if they know anything?”

“Will do. And your team will keep ours informed too?”

“We will.”

Alex was up and out of her seat before Maggie could think of saying anything more. With all the cases going on, though, she figured it was only right to give her some time before she pressed her on the issue.

\---

The next night, after a nice dinner out at one of Jenna’s favorite restaurants, Maggie found herself in her bedroom being stripped of her shirt by an already topless Jenna, both of them already half gone after their first two attempts at finally getting further than half-naked grinding against one another had been interrupted by urgent phone calls and demands from their bosses that couldn’t be ignored.

As she tried to pull off her jeans before taking off her shoes, Maggie fell backwards into the wall with a loud  _thump_ , laughing as Jenna rolled her eyes and sank to her knees anyway, pulling Maggie’s pants down to her ankles and pushing her thighs as far apart as they would go before ducking her head forward and licking up the length of Maggie’s sex, pulling a long, low groan from her.

And Maggie wanted to protest that maybe they should move to the bed, but she didn’t really want Jenna to stop, even if it did feel a bit like her legs were cuffed together. And then, unbidden, an image of Alex Danvers with her handcuffs flashed into Maggie’s mind. And _oh_. Oh no. One didn’t crush on baby gays. And one didn’t fantasize about baby gays. And one most definitely didn’t fantasize about baby gays when in bed—or next to bed, semantics—with someone else.

Before Maggie could insist that they do things right—get in bed and fully undress each other and remember exactly who they were and weren’t in bed with at the moment—a loud knock sounded from the front door.

For half a second, Maggie was struck with the absurd thought that maybe it was Alex. Not that Alex knew where she lived. Though she could probably find that information easily enough. But maybe she’d decided that she really needed to talk—right then and there.

“Get your pants off. I’ll go see who’s here,” Jenna said, pressing a damp kiss to Maggie’s inner thigh before pulling herself up and walking out to the living room.

“No one’s here!” she yelled back a few moments later. “Oh, wait, hold on, there’s something under the door.”

Maggie kicked off her boots and jeans, stumbling forward into the living room to see what that was about.

“Oh my god. Oh my freakin god. It’s a note from your neighbor!” Jenna crowed. She cleared her throat and began reading it aloud in a dramatic voice: “ _404_. That’s us!  _It’s after 11. Your girlfriend is loud._  Aww, she thinks I can’t make you loud? _And your bed slams into my wall._  Ha! We hadn’t even made it into bed yet. _Some of us work long hours and need sleep._ Yeah, okay, buddy, try again. We all work long hours. Some of us just know how to get laid in between them. Oh wait, one more line: _Keep it down._ Signed,  _403_.”

Cackling, Jenna dragged Maggie back into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed loud enough that the bedsprings creaked. One finger held aloft, Jenna took in a deep breath, then let out a long moan, louder than Maggie had ever heard in anything that wasn’t porn.

After a moment of stunned silence, Maggie burst out laughing, finally shushing Jenna when she started up again, knowing she’d never be able to stop laughing if she continued.

“Wait, wait,” Maggie managed between peals of laughter. “I have to live next to this person for a while.”

“And?”

“And, you know, I don’t want her to hate me or report me or something.”

“You could probably report her for that smoke detector.”

Maggie groaned. “I know, I know, but…I don’t know. I like being a good neighbor.”

“What about being a good girlfriend?” Jenna batted her eyelashes and flashed a smile in Maggie’s direction.

Maggie blinked slowly, remembering that she was naked. And Jenna was half-naked, and they could probably fix that half really fast. And Jenna had been doing pretty excellent things with her tongue before that note.

She flipped Jenna onto her back before she’d quite realized what was happening, Maggie’s fingers trailing down to the button and zipper, intent on getting them onto an even playing field.

“You gonna make me be quiet?” Jenna asked, her tongue flicking across Maggie’s earlobe.

“Fuck,” Maggie gasped, her hips canting forward.

And she was fairly certain they were successful. Sure, they weren’t  _silent_ , but they shushed each other and swallowed whimpered words with kisses whenever it got particularly loud. And they didn’t get a second note, so that had to count for something.

The next morning, Maggie found herself dwelling on the note and growing increasingly annoyed by it. She’d dealt with plenty of noise filtering in through the wall. Not that it was often, but there were early morning alarm clocks and meal time smoke alarms and the occasional squeal that she’d always assumed was about a bug or a scary moment in a movie or something.

“What’s going on?” Jenna asked, wrapping an arm around Maggie’s shoulders and pressing a soft kiss to her cheek.

“I just…I shouldn’t have to be the only one that’s quiet.”

“That’s correct.”

“And, like, fine, whatever, maybe it was a little late yesterday, but I don’t want to have to worry about notes all the time, you know?”

“I agree.”

Maggie nodded, falling silent.

“What if we sent our own note back?”

Maggie drummed her fingers on the counter, contemplating it. “You don’t think that’s gonna escalate everything?”

“Don’t you want to be able to escalate things here without worrying about some dumb neighbor ruining the mood every two seconds?”

And with Jenna’s short nails raking up her thigh, Maggie had to admit, she made an excellent point.

Together they ended up scratching out a note:

“ _Dear 403,_

_Sorry for the noise. We’ll try to keep the loud stuff to the daytime hours. I certainly get how annoying it can be. That smoke detector of yours sure was a bitch._

_Best regards,  
404_ ”

They tip-toed down the wall and shoved it through the crack under the door, giving one loud knock before scampering back down the hallway and through the door, collapsing against it, gasping in lungfuls of air between fits of laughter.

The good mood continued through breakfast and eventually they found themselves back in the bedroom.

“We gave her warning…”

“We did.”

“So we don’t have to be quiet, right?”

“Not that quiet,” Maggie hedged. “But, I mean, we probably shouldn’t try to be loud on purpose.”

“Well then I’ll just have to make sure it’s organic, hmm?”

And, oh, Maggie could get behind that promise.

\---

By the time they were done and showered, Jenna had to leave to grab a late lunch with some of her friends. Settling in on the couch, Maggie pulled out her phone, sifting through too many spam emails before she found a text message waiting from Alex. “Got a few aliens in custody that I think you'll want to know about. I know it’s Saturday, but do you have any time to meet? Or any updates from your end?”

She cringed at the sight of the time stamp from a couple of hours earlier, sending back: “Sorry, been a little busy. I can come down now if you want.”

Alex’s response came in quickly, and Maggie found herself pulling on clothes slightly nicer than the sweatpants she’d been lounging in since getting out of the shower and heading over to the DEO.

Her second experience with security was a lot more like what she’d been expecting. Within a few steps, she had two burly guards on her, and it had taken a call to Alex for the guards to even let Maggie show them her badge. Once Alex got down, though, it all went quite smoothly, and Alex guided her into the elevator and up to the floor with her labs.

As they walked, Alex filled Maggie in on the details of the case, explaining that she’d been able to confirm through tests that three of the aliens the DEO had brought in during some of the more vicious recent attacks had a foreign substance in their blood. Maggie felt her stomach churn at the idea that someone out there was willing to drug aliens and turn them into violent killers to try to get more people angry about the possibility of allowing aliens a pathway to legal citizenship and all the rights it entailed.

She shook her head and forced herself to listen as Alex continued, couching everything in self-negation and worries about her own lack of progress. “I’m trying to reverse engineer something that could counter its effects.”

“Hey, that’s definitely something, Danvers.”

But Alex merely shrugged, unwilling to hold eye contact. “Not until I actually manage to make something that works.”

“It’s more than we had before.” Hell, more than anyone at NCPD had suspected, let alone verified.

“Yeah, well… Point is, two of the three aliens are supposedly quite peaceful. At least that’s what Supergirl says.”

Maggie scoffed. Sure, get all the information from Supergirl who didn’t spend her nights with fellow aliens, who had never slept in one of the tent cities down under the bridges, who didn’t need to find sanctuary in spaces like the bar because she was already visible to the whole world as its blue-eyed, blonde-haired hero. “Mm, and she knows best.” Maggie noticed the way Alex stumbled, her shoulders tensing. Right. Not dating but definitely close. Probably wouldn’t do to insult her. “Sorry—didn’t get a ton of sleep last night.”

Alex groaned. “You and me both.”

Maggie glanced up, noticing the sallowness to Alex’s cheeks, the purple bags that still hadn’t disappeared from under her eyes. “Tell me you weren’t here all night.”

“No, no. Though I might have slept better if I were. I just, too many thoughts. It doesn’t matter.”

But Maggie thought it probably did matter. Because she remembered spending too many nights sitting up in her bed, unable to sleep as she tried to untangle the knot of feelings and worries and suspicions that had taken up residence low in her stomach. Because she remembered what it was like the first time someone had thought she was gay—even if it was voiced as an insult in the school cafeteria, not as a question from a gay woman in a gay bar. She remembered the fear of realizing that maybe that word fit in a way she hadn’t expected it to, then the crushing weight of learning that it also carried more repercussions than she could ever have expected.

She reached a hand out before thinking better of it and pulling it back. “Alex?” Alex’s head lifted an inch or two. “You’ve seemed a little…” Maggie hesitated, swallowing back words like  _panicked_  and  _scared_  and  _so very gay and finally on the very of coming out_. “Do you want to go grab a bite to eat? Maybe talk a little?” Alex looked ready to say no, her hand already up, wrist flicking as she waved off Maggie’s concern, but Maggie knew that move too well to buy it. “C’mon, my treat.”

“You don’t have to.”

“If I’m right about something, I think I really should.”

“I…um, really, I mean, I should probably do work anyway.”

“You’ll work better once you’ve eaten.”

“I’ve got some protein bars in my office.”

Maggie fixed Alex with a stern glare. “Nope. Not gonna let you subject yourself to those travesties unless it’s a last resort."

“Fine, fine. Where to?”

Maggie grinned as Alex reached for her coat and her wallet. “We’re going to a diner for some artery-clogging brunch food.” Artery-clogging was probably generous. Maggie swore she once got pancakes with enough butter in and on them to kill a man, and then the waitress had come back with a little dish of butter on the side a few minutes later, apologizing for forgetting it the first time around.

She waited by her Triumph for Alex to pull out of the parking garage on her own bike, then led her down to the south side of town to the old 50s style diner with its never-changing, laminated menus and the working jukebox still standing in the corner and desserts that were good enough for Maggie to say fuck it and down a handful of lactaid right along with her double chocolate malt.

Debby greeted them almost as soon as they walked in, mouthing, “She’s cute,” at Maggie behind a menu before Maggie could even try to introduce Alex as a friend. Luckily Debby knew better than to say anything—or, more likely, wanted the opportunity observe Alex and how she treated seemingly random members of the wait staff before deciding whether or not she liked her—and dropped off their coffees and took their order with little more than a few pleasantries.

As soon as Debby was out of earshot, Maggie folded her hands in front of her, lacing her fingers together and smiling up at Alex. She hoped it was soothing. Instead Alex looked more ready to bolt than ever, stammering out a question about why they were there, her voice wavering with every word.

Figuring Alex could use a bit of honesty instead of the awkward attempts at pretending like they were doing little more than discussing the weather and random details of the case, Maggie squared her shoulders and faced Alex head on. “Things have been weird ever since the pool tournament.”

“I’ve just been busy,” Alex blurted out, and Maggie bit her tongue to keep from pointing out that she hadn’t said a thing about things being weird because they hadn’t seen each other or because Alex kept shrugging off her requests to get drinks or play some pool.

“Alex. I”—Maggie hesitated, wondering if maybe this was another situation where she had misread things—“well, maybe I’m making assumptions. So I guess…did I make you uncomfortable?” She hoped the answer was no. She and Alex might not be besties, but Maggie thought they could be friends, and she was proud of the growth Alex had already made in her thinking about aliens. It would suck to have to send her away because she turned out to be a homophobe.

“No!” Well, that shouted answer seemed to clarify things a bit. “No, no, not at all. It’s cool—totally cool that you’re, you know…”

“Gay?” Maggie supplied. If she hadn’t seen Alex’s eyes lingering on the rainbow flag, she might still wonder…

“Right.” Alex’s voice cracked on the word, and Maggie had never seen her look quite so scared, so lost.

“And you?” She hoped her voice was soft enough to lessen the weight of the question.

“What about me?” So not quite ready to go there yet.

“Why’d you freak out when Jenna thought we were a couple?”

“I didn’t freak out. I just—we’re not, you know?” Maggie could see the bob to Alex’s throat as she swallowed. “And so it’d be weird if I let people think that we were. Because then I’m basically lying, and that’s wrong.” Her fingers never stilled, constantly moving from her mug to the edge of her placemat to her forehead to her fork. “And then, you know, then you’d never have gotten drinks with Jenna or a date or whatever, and I’m sure that would have been sad for you.”

The words came so fast, it took Maggie a few minutes to untangle them. “Was it really only about her thinking something about us? Or did it have more to do with her thinking something about you?”

“I don’t know.” It was more than Maggie had expected, and the words seemed to carry more weight than their three syllables suggested.

“You don’t know what?” Maggie leaned in slightly, tempted to reach out to Alex but unsure if it would be welcome.

“I don’t—no, I probably do. But I don’t know that I want to know.”

God, it was all so achingly familiar. She thought all the research she did about later-in-life coming out stories was probably unnecessary. Yes, it was later, and, yes, Alex was older, and, yes, Alex surely had a different path towards this moment than she did, but the moment itself? The fear and anxiety and that feeling like being on the edge of some cliff where what’s behind kind of sucks but the way forward is so goddam uncertain? She knew it just as well as anyone else did.

That time she did reach out, leaving her hand there for Alex if she wanted it.

Only Alex didn’t. Alex shook her head and let out a shuddering exhale and seemed to plead silently with Maggie to let it be. So Maggie pulled her hand back and slumped down into her seat a little—enough to convince Alex that she was backing off physically and metaphorically. “Got any fun plans for tonight?”

Alex blinked slowly, like the question was the last thing she’d been expecting—and, probably, the last thing she’d even thought about for herself. “Uh…no? Not really.”

“That’s fair. Probably deserve a quiet night in after not enough sleep.” Not that Maggie thought she’d done enough to help alleviate any of Alex’s questions or concerns. She sort of worried she’d made them worse.

“Here’s to hoping.”

“I probably won’t sleep well tonight either,” Maggie admitted. Between the knowledge that there was an organization—likely Cadmus—out there drugging random aliens and making them more likely to attack, leaving everyone in National City vulnerable and driving an increase in anti-alien prejudice, and the anxiety about meeting one of Jenna’s friends the next day, which kind of felt like a big step, Maggie suspected she’d be tossing and turning for hours.

“Why’s that? Got a shitty neighbor too?”

Maggie couldn’t help the bark of laughter. “Wouldn’t believe the half of it.” Part of her wanted to tell Alex all about it for a laugh, but she suspected maybe pointing out that she and Jenna had spent all night and morning fucking wouldn’t go over too well. Not when Alex was trying to spend a few minutes not dwelling on that big, probably gay elephant in the room. So she shifted conversational directions, mentioning that she was meeting one of Jenna’s friends and hoping that wouldn’t be as overt of a reminder.

But Alex’s voice was squeaky when she let out a shocked little, “Oh!” and Maggie thought the enthusiasm behind her questions sounded forced. Still, she wanted Alex to know that things could be good, that she could be happy as an out lesbian too. “Yeah. It’s good, you know? I think, I don’t know. Maybe things will be different with her.”

“That—that’s so great, Maggie.” But Alex looked pale, and her hands trembled, and Maggie worried that Alex might be sick or pass out or bolt at any second.

“Are you okay? You don’t look great.”

A beat.

“I think I might be gay.”

Maggie tried to school her features into a calm mask. She suspected Alex wasn’t the type to want to squeal and hold hands and hug and celebrate that little burst of self-discovery—at least not yet. So she nodded and kept quiet, taking the food from a concerned-looking Debby with a muttered, “Thank you,” and shifting Alex’s pancakes across the table to her. It took a few moments, but eventually the smell of buttery goodness got to Alex, and she toyed with her fork.

“You wanna talk about it?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t know,” Alex whispered, her eyes never leaving her plate. She poked at one of the pancakes with the tines of her fork.

“Don’t know if you want to talk about it?” Not for the first time, Maggie found herself wishing she could borrow M’gann’s telepathy. It would be beyond nice to get inside Alex’s head and figure out what the right things to say were. Then again, she wondered if Alex even knew what she wanted to hear. Maybe somewhere deep down. Buried beneath years of compulsory heterosexuality and anxiety and fear.

“Maybe. But I also don’t know…about the other thing.”

“The gay thing?”

“Yeah, I, uh, that.”

“Well…what made you think it might be true?”

And somehow that question seemed to rattle Alex more than anything else. “Um, a friend may have suggested it. Several months ago.” 

“And you’re starting to think maybe they were right?” Maggie didn’t believe for half a second that she was getting the full story.

“I—it’s just—she kind of let it go. I might not have reacted too well to it then.”

It seemed like the wrong time to point out that Alex hadn’t reacted too well the second time either. “So what happened to make you think of it again?”

“You.” Maggie faltered, bringing her bite of French toast up and missing her mouth entirely, leaving a sticky, syrupy imprint along the corner of her mouth and cheek. But when she looked up, Alex seemed far too busy backtracking to notice Maggie’s own internal freak out about being a drop-dead gorgeous woman’s gay awakening. “I mean because, you know, you are, and I’m spending time with you. Not because of anything else. And then I think my neighbor’s gay too. And it sort of feels like I’m surrounded by this one thing I’d really rather not think about.” 

Maggie nodded in understanding, thinking back to the faded rainbow flag on her desk. “And you don’t know if it’s because lesbians suddenly seem to have clustered around you or if you’re suddenly looking for them?”

“Um, maybe.” 

“So why don’t you want to think about it?” Maggie managed to get her French toast into her mouth on the first try that time.

“I, I mean, I’m almost 30, you know?” Maggie did know. She knew because she’d spent an inordinate amount of time looking up testimonials and personal narratives written by women just around that age to see what their experiences were like. Not that she wanted to admit to that. It sort of sounded creepy. And presumptuous. “And I—what does it mean if it took me 30 years to figure something this basic out?”

No. No, no, no, nope. Not letting Alex go down that route of blaming herself for something that, unlike other things, definitely wasn’t on her. “It means that we live in a shitty society where we often don’t let people think there are options until they’re old enough to go through exactly this crisis.”

“But then, maybe I’m just, I don’t know, confused.”

Even more no. Maggie had gotten that line from enough supposedly well-intentioned people to have an instant gut reaction against it. “What you’re feeling? Whatever it is.” She suspected she knew what it was. “It’s real. You’re real. And figuring out what that confusing mess of feelings means might make you really happy. And you deserve that, okay?”

“But what if…I mean, I’m not supposed to—this wasn’t part of the plan.”

Maggie let the slight bitterness of her hot coffee wash over her tongue, calming her nerves. “It never really is, is it?” She’d certainly never planned on being rejected and kicked out of her house at 14 years old. “Look, plans are good and all—to an extent. But they stop being good when they start getting in the way.” Alex didn’t look convinced, and Maggie thought she was probably a woman who liked plans—especially whey they were her own plans. “Here’s the thing. Like you said, you’re almost 30. So yeah, you probably get a little bit more of what might be at stake with coming out or what it might mean to be gay, and that can make things a little harder.” Sometimes Maggie wondered if she would have known to be more careful if she’d lived a couple more years before going and falling for another girl. Because she’d seen the boys calling each other gay, and she knew her parents went to church and that the priest said some stuff about marriage being between a man and a woman, but it had never seemed so violent, so virulent, until it was all directed at her. “But you’re also old enough to know you’ve got people in your corner. It sounds like that friend of yours is there for you. And, I mean, I know we didn’t get off on the best foot, but you’ve got me too, Danvers.” 

“Promise?”

Maggie swore her heart broke a little at the sight of Alex’s eyes glistening with tears she suspected the woman would deny if asked about them later. “I promise.”

They sank into silence then, and Maggie finished her second slice of French toast before turning to the hash browns and debating whether it would be worth the slight stomachache to polish them off too. Alex’s soft voice pulled her out of her internal deliberations.

“How, um, what do I do now? I mean, I’m not even sure.”

“There’s no one right answer, but I bet that friend of yours might be a good person to talk to.”

“Yeah…yeah, maybe.”

\---

Later that night, Maggie found herself at the alien bar again, asking around to see if anyone had seen R. She didn’t know if the drugs under the second bridge were connected to Cadmus’s drugs, and since they were being bought and sold voluntarily, she thought it was unlikely, but she still felt the need to check. Only again and again she was given shrugs or averted gazes that made her think she was missing something.

Eventually Darla appeared at her table. “He showed up the other day.”

“What?”

Darla glared. “R. He came into the bar the other day, but…he wasn’t himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, I don’t need you trying to get all up in his case when he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Darla,” Maggie groaned. “You know I’ve never gone out of my way to get someone thrown into jail or punished or anything like that.”

“So what? It just happens? Cause from where I’m sitting, you’re devoting your whole damn life to a bunch of biased assholes who’d rather see us dead or behind bars than listen to our side of the story.”

“I kept you out, didn’t I? I kept the bored cops out of the bar and away from this block, yeah?”

“Didn’t help the others.”

“It’s really fucking hard to help once they’re attacking someone or burning down buildings.” Maggie felt her heart hammering in her chest as Darla went right for Maggie’s deepest insecurities about her inability to help, to change anything, to make life better for any of the aliens in the community. She took a deep breath in through her nose, releasing it out through her mouth. “I…I am trying my hardest. I really am. But there is someone out there—someone so much worse than the men in black with their hidden prison—and I’m trying to stop them before things get bad, okay? And I think maybe R has information that I need.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not gonna give it to you.”

“He’s always been skittish. You just need to wait him out.”

Darla shook her head, tucking a lock of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear. “Wasn’t like that this time. He was…angry. Threw a drink at me before he left.”

“What?” Maggie was on her feet in an instant, her eyes scanning Darla’s face and upper body for any cuts or bruises.

“I’m fine.” The corners of Darla’s mouth turned up slightly into a wistful smile. “Kinda nice that you still care.”

“Of course I care.”

“It doesn’t—look, someone was there to help, and R left in a hurry. I’m fine. But don’t go looking for him yourself.” She ducked her head down. “I can’t guarantee you will be.”

 With a rap of her knuckles against the table, Darla spun on her heels and made her way back to the bar, skimming her fingers along the upper arm of one of the patrons Maggie knew she used to hook up with. Maggie rolled her eyes. The proof of moving on was unnecessary; she wasn’t trying to crawl back and beg for a second chance.

Once Darla was behind the bar again, M’gann slipped into the seat across from Maggie. “How’d that go?”

Maggie shrugged. “Definitely could’ve been worse.”

“That’s something. So am I gonna see you back in here more often?”

With a little chuckle, Maggie lifted her shoulders. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll stay home and try to piss off my neighbor a little more.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh god, did I not tell you?” M’gann shook her head. “So the other day Jenna and I were, you know.”

“Maggie. I have been bombarded with your thoughts about a certain federal agent and her butt and her smile and her jawline and things I don’t even want to think about enough times that I think you can tell me you were having sex.”

Maggie could feel heat flushing up her chest and across her cheeks. She repeated Jenna’s name to herself like a mantra, hoping M’gann hadn’t seen any thoughts about Alex during her more recent visits. Because, sure, okay, maybe once or twice she’d had a dream that had been less than appropriate for one colleague to have about another colleague, but dreams didn’t have to mean anything. She was dating Jenna. She liked Jenna. She had no plans to be anything other than faithful to Jenna. Alex was just…on her mind. And only because Maggie was worried about her. And working with her. Nothing more. Certainly not because of her nice butt or the fact that Maggie thought maybe she could do a good job of convincing Alex that she was definitely gay and could definitely be happy about it or anything like that. Just friendly concern. That was all.

“Maggie.”

“Hmm?” Maggie blinked, slowly remembering where she was.

“I believe you were in the middle of a story about you and someone who is most definitely not the woman on your mind now.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Maggie rubbed at her face with her hands. “Just…long day. She’s only in my thoughts because we got lunch, and we’re working on a case, and she’s maybe kind of coming out. Finally.” M’gann didn’t say anything, but Maggie could feel the weight of her stare on her, so she focused on gathering some of the condensation from her glass of water on her fingers, looking intently as it beaded along the glass under the warmth of her hand. “Anyway, um, yeah, so Jenna and I were having sex—as people do—and it was the first time for us, so it wasn’t like we’d been loud every night or something, and all the sudden we hear this knock on the door, right? And I’m kinda confused, but also not really thinking.”

M’gann let out a snort of laughter. “Course not.”

“Hush. Anyway, Jenna goes to see who it is, but no one’s there. Whatever, wrong door, right? But no!” Maggie smacked her hand down on the table, attracting a bit of attention. “It’s a fucking note slipped under the door telling us to be quiet! Can you believe it? We’d barely made noise, and this lady has the audacity to be like, some of us have jobs or something. Like, how the hell does she think I afford my rent? We’ve all got jobs!”

“And so you were obviously a complete adult about it, right?”

“As much of an adult as she was,” Maggie shot back.

“And this”—M’gann pointed her finger at Maggie—“is why I find everyone younger than me to be so immature.”

“You’re over 300 years old. Everyone is younger than you.”

“Precisely.”

After a bit more talk about the neighbor, Maggie checked her watch. “I should probably head out, but if you hear any more about R or anything about drugs—maybe drugs that make aliens act a little violent—can you let me know?”

“You know something?”

Maggie tilted her head from side to side. “Nothing totally certain yet, but we’ve got some suspicions. There’s definitely something being given to aliens, and we think it’s making them attack people and other aliens without much in the way of provocation. Not sure where it’s from—”

“But you’ve got suspicions?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it…?”

“I think so.”

M’gann nodded slowly as she brought her hands up in front of her. “I might…we may need to talk soon.”

“Are you okay?”

M’gann shrugged. “I’ve survived a long time, Maggie.”

“M’gann, if there’s something—”

“Maggie, just…I need you to give me a bit of time to sort out a few things on my own, find out if they match up, okay? If they do, I promise that I will let you know.”

“Okay.” Maggie had so many more questions, but M’gann was up before she could even figure out how to put them all into words.

“Have a good night.”

“You too. Please be safe, yeah?”

“I’m more concerned about you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be back with a chapter this Tuesday, but Thursday I'll be in the new place without internet after a 600 mile drive, so it'll probably be until Sunday before you get Chapter 8. But this one and the next are exceptionally long, so hopefully you can spread them out a bit :) 
> 
> As always, comments give me life especially while I'm trying not to panic about the impending move


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly shorter, though hopefully still enjoyable update, but this weekend's is looonnggggg, so you can get excited for that one!   
> Today's the day - loading up the truck and setting out for our long drive bright and early tomorrow morning - so it'll take me a bit of time to get to comments, but I can't wait to hear your thoughts once I have internet again!

On Sunday morning, Maggie found herself sitting beside Jenna across from Bailey, her best friend from college. She was really trying to follow along, but they were going back and forth about two other people that Maggie assumed were probably also in their college friend group, and they were dropping names of places—or maybe they weren’t places at all—that Maggie had never heard of and cackling at things that didn’t sound like jokes and finishing each other’s sentences while Maggie sipped at her tea. And she got it. She was like that with some of her old friends, she was sure. Years of friendship tended to turn whole conversations into inside jokes and half-told stories with their own internal logic and code that made them gibberish to anyone not in the know.

Eventually the conversation shifted back into something they could all participate in, and, with M’gann’s words about her thoughts about Alex ringing in Maggie’s mind, Maggie made every effort to be fully present, fully engaged. She complimented Jenna and talked about the fun things they had done and all the places she would recommend Bailey try to see while in National City, and by the end of it, Jenna’s hand was curled around Maggie’s in her lap, a broad smile tugging up the corners of her mouth.

Once they said goodbye to Bailey outside of Noonan’s, Jenna tugged on Maggie’s hand. “C’mon, let’s go back to your place and annoy your neighbor.”

“Yeah?”

“I think being that charming earns you something,” Jenna teased, pressing a kiss to the corner of Maggie’s mouth.

When they got back, Jenna tore a piece of paper off the little notebook Maggie kept in the kitchen for grocery lists and random reminders, scrawling out:

“ _403,_

_Heads up: it’s about to get loud, if you catch my drift ;)_

_-404_ ”

Part of Maggie thought maybe they shouldn’t exacerbate it—maybe blondie wasn’t even home—but then again, blondie had started it, and Maggie didn’t back down from a challenge. She let Jenna run the note down the hallway and slide it under the door, quickly shutting and locking the door behind her when she got back, both of them slightly breathless and giggling. Less than a minute later, they heard a door open and close from the hallway and had to stifle laughter.

“Oh my god, is she, like, listening at her wall? It can’t be that loud, can it?” Jenna asked, clutching at her side as she kept in gasps of laughter.

“I don’t know! Not like I’ve literally ever heard her getting it on.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if she did, her partner could help remove that gigantic stick from her ass.”

Maggie snorted, shaking her head as she led Jenna back to the bedroom. No use in wasting the opportunity. After all, blondie had already vacated the premises for them…

Within half an hour, Maggie was sitting on the couch half-dressed listening to Jenna yell at her, and she couldn’t even be mad because she knew she deserved it.

“Are you cheating on me?”

“No! I told you, it was just—I fucked up, okay? But it didn’t mean anything, I swear.”

“Are you kidding me? It doesn’t mean anything when the girl you’re going down on calls you someone else’s name?”

Maggie grimaced at the reminder. “It was…I just saw her, and then I was talking to someone about her, and I’m kind of worried about her, and so her name was just…there.”

“Yeah. Alex seems to be ‘just there’ everywhere in your life.”

“Jenna,” Maggie sighed.

“Now you get it right.”

“Please. I…ever since Nine Ball’s she’s been really confused and trying to figure things out, and I want to—”

“Excuse me.”

Maggie looked around, trying to figure out what had happened to bring out this new surge of anger. “Um, what?”

“You said ever since Nine Ball’s?”

“Uh…yes.”

“Is this Alex the same girl you spent the whole night wrapped around at the pool tournament?”

Maggie could feel all of her muscles tense as her heart seemed to skid to a stop then hammer back to life again. “I thought…didn’t you know that?”

“How the hell should I have known that?”

“I don’t…I mean, it’s not like I was keeping it from you, and I just…I thought you knew that when I was talking about the Alex who was coming out later in life, you knew it was the Alex from the bar.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Jenna snapped, her voice rising.

“Look, she’s a friend, that’s all.”

“A friend who everyone in that bar, myself included, thought you were dating or at least trying to bang.”

“Jenna.”

“No. No, you don’t get to act like I’m overreacting. You clearly like this girl and bring her out to be your partner for this date-thing. Then you find out she’s some fucking closet case. But apparently that’s not the end of it.” Jenna began pacing in front of the couch then, holding up her fingers as she counted off her points—each one feeling like a damning accusation. “No. You’re fucking researching how to be there for her and spending your days at work with her and running off to cases to try to make sure she’s okay and talking to all your other friends about her. And now—now you’re fantasizing about being in bed with her!”

“I’m not! I am with you. I  _want_  to be with you.”

“Excuse me if I have a hard time believing it.”

“Please, let me—”

“No.” Jenna shook her head, pulling her sweater tighter around her. “I need to go. Don’t—don’t call me.”

“Come on, this can’t be the end of things.”

“I need a few days, okay? I just…you figure out whatever your feelings are, and then we’ll talk.”

Maggie swallowed back tears as she forced herself to nod. “Okay.”

And then Jenna was gone, and Maggie was alone trying to figure out how it had all gone so wrong so fast.

\---

Much to Maggie’s chagrin, both Monday and Tuesday passed without incident. Not that she wanted aliens to attack or be hurt, but she also could have used a few hours of excitement instead of long stretches of paperwork that left her alone with her thoughts, which inevitably drifted back to Jenna. To Jenna and to Alex, if she were being honest. But it wasn’t because she liked Alex or anything like that. She was worried about her. She probably needed a friend—Maggie sure as hell could have used one when she was coming out. Which is how she ended up dialing Alex’s number early on Tuesday before she left the precinct.

Alex answered on the second ring, and within a few minutes, they’d made plans to get a drink at P.J.’s.

There was no reason to feel guilty. Friends could get drinks. Friends could help each other when they were going through tough times. Friends could acknowledge their friends’ attractiveness without it being weird or having to mean anything more than aesthetic appreciation.

She debated texting Jenna to tell her, make sure she knew that Maggie was being completely honest and not sneaking around with Alex the moment she was gone, but that seemed like it would turn drinks with a friend into a  _thing_. A thing that could maybe be more than a thing. A thing that could mean something. And it didn’t. So Maggie didn’t text Jenna. Instead, she stood outside and let the cool breeze clear her thoughts as she waited for what was becoming the telltale purr of Alex’s Ducati to pull into the lot.

When Alex arrived, Maggie gave her a wave—a friendly wave—and made easy conversation on the walk over. They chatted a bit about their weekends, and even though Maggie was fairly certain neither of them were being honest about what they had done, it was okay; there was no need to pry.

Once they got to the bar and got a table and a first round of drinks, Maggie decided she could afford to push a little harder, try to gauge where Alex was with the coming out process. She was pleasantly surprised when Alex said things were going well, even thanked Maggie.

“No need. Really.” A thank you seemed to imply that she had done something more than any friend would, and that would seem to validate Jenna’s accusations and M’gann’s suggestions and her own deep-rooted worries. She was being a friend. A friend who understood what it was like.

But Alex shook her head, leaning forward in her seat. “No. I mean, you didn’t have to, you know? And I think…I think I’ve let myself get away with pushing some of this down for a really, really long time now. Pretending like things didn’t mean anything, like dating and, uh”—Alex’s gaze dropped to the table—“intimacy weren’t for me, even though…even though sometimes it seemed like they could be, but not with—not with the guys I was seeing.”

A flash of a dream Maggie had had about showing Alex exactly how right things like intimacy could feel with another woman appeared, unbidden, in her mind, and she shoved it away. She was there as a friend, and she could be a friend. And friends could hold their friends’ hands to comfort them, even when it made their friends do that thing where they bit their lower lip and looked so very kissable.

“I guess…I just wanted to say thanks because this—it’s a little less scary with you here.”

And that was the reason she was doing everything. Because, god, everyone deserved someone there to make it all a little less scary for them. “Always, Alex.” 

And it was all worth it when Alex squeezed her hand, her lips curling up into a smile—maybe a little scared, but a smile nonetheless—and said, “It feels like things finally make sense. Like  _I_  finally make sense.” 

But it also felt a little heavy, and the emotional weight made Maggie want to do things like reach out and pull Alex in for a hug and make promises about always being there to help that sounded less than friendly and also like far too much. So she forced herself to smile and laugh a little as she asked, “Mm, all those ‘damn, I really should have known’ moments hitting you hard?”

“Does everyone get them?”

“Oh yeah. Suddenly you realize you weren’t counting down the minutes until your English class started because you really wanted to find out what happened next in  _The Scarlet Letter_ , but because you really wanted to listen to Ms. Jameson talk about it.”

“I assume with that level of specificity, this is not a random example?”

“Not so much,” Maggie chuckled, thinking back to Ms. Jameson with her curly blonde hair and her “unapologetic feminist” pin and the seemingly endless supply of button-up shirts she wore. She wondered if Ms. Jameson was on Facebook to find out if she was gay…

Then Alex was talking about a science teacher and her high school best friend, and Maggie had to shove down her gut reaction to bolt because it wasn’t the same. Alex’s friend—Vicki something—wasn’t the same as Eliza, and Alex wasn’t the same as Maggie, and this was all so many goddam years in the past that it really shouldn’t still carry the same weight.

She managed to get out a few vague responses before the topic shifted to Lucy, who Maggie had to assume was probably the first friend to suggest that Alex might be gay, though she doubted that Lucy was the first friend to think it. Maggie figured if she polled all of Alex’s friends, acquaintances, and co-workers, at least half of them would have assumed she was already out but quiet about her personal life. She hoped the sister was as understanding. They sounded close from all of Alex’s stories, at least, and maybe that would count for something.

She found herself offering a drink or dinner when Alex came out to Kara before it hit her that it all sounded rather date-like. So she backtracked, clarifying, “Even when people take it well, it’s nice to have time to decompress afterward with people who kind of get it.” Better. That sounded better for sure.

“Thanks,” Alex muttered.

“Of course.” How easily the words came startled her, but she knew they were true. 

“So, uh, you ever catch up on Veep?” Alex asked, tilting her glass in a little half-circle in front of her.  

“Oh my god, I did.” Maggie chuckled into her drink. “She’s a lesbian, Mike! She’s not a werewolf!” She was proud of Alex when she laughed too.

“To not being werewolves.” Alex held her glass in the air, clinking it against Maggie’s before taking a sip.

“To being the much better alternative!” Maggie toasted in return.

And Alex looked a little uncertain about calling it “much better,” but she didn’t object either, and that was progress.

Their conversation lasted for hours. They talked in hushed tones about cases and traded show and book recommendations back and forth, following up on some of their earlier suggestions. Maggie lied her way through questions about how meeting Jenna’s friend had gone. Or maybe that part wasn’t a lie because meeting Bailey  _had_  gone well; it was everything that followed that turned it all to shit. But she couldn’t tell Alex about any of that because it would involve telling Alex that, “oh yeah, I was having sex with my girlfriend when I accidentally moaned your name, but that’s totally cool and definitely a thing friends do, yeah?”

Luckily Alex didn’t dwell on the topic either, switching to talk about her sister’s columns in The Tribune and some restaurant she’d recently reviewed. Maggie bit back the burning questions she had about how it was that Alex had a little sister who worked with Cat Grant to write some of the most balanced, progressive pieces on alien rights and alien life in the city but that Alex had never really second-guessed her own line of work until Maggie pushed her on it. Then again, she figured, Alex probably never told Kara about her job. It would have put her in an awkward spot to be given a story like that and told to sit on it for the rest of forever. Or until President Marsdin decided to pull back the curtain on them. Either way. But they did talk more about alien rights, and Alex mentioned that she had been advocating for a few changes around the DEO—mainly small things, but progress nonetheless. And Maggie had noticed that the NCPD hadn’t been stonewalled on any of their recent partner cases, receiving information in a reasonably timely manner and almost always getting all the information instead of files with anything of note removed or blacked out as “confidential.”

The hours flew by, and when they finally gathered their things to head out, Maggie was shocked to find that the storm that wasn’t supposed to hit until 10 or so that night had already rolled in.

She eyed the soaked streets, watching in the light of the streetlamps as rain continued to fall at a steady pace. Her mouth curled up into a smile as she turned to Alex. “Ready to run, Danvers?”

“Wait, what?”

“Well I’m not standing out in the rain for a slow stroll back to the precinct.”

And Alex looked like she was ready to object, but when Maggie started running, Alex was at her side in an instant. Maggie grinned; she knew better than to think Alex would let a challenge slide by without rising to the occasion.

Maggie could feel the rain soaking through her clothes as they sprinted down the blocks, and water seeped into the toes of her boots, but she also felt free, happy for the first time in a couple of days. She whooped and laughed as they ran, jumping over the large puddles, her heels kicking up sprays of water when she didn’t jump far enough. And Alex didn’t make fun of her or call her childish or insist that they should be waiting inside—after all, they were both going to get soaked riding their bikes home anyway. Instead, she was right at Maggie’s side, letting out little barks of incredulous laughter like she couldn’t quite believe she was doing it, but she was still keeping up.

By the time they made it back to the precinct, Maggie’s heart felt light, and her cheeks ached from smiling so much. “Sorry we only got rain and not rainbows, but I’m still really, really proud of you.”

Alex’s smile was so wide that Maggie couldn’t resist pulling her into a hug, their wet clothes squishing together as she squeezed Alex tight. She caught a whiff of whiskey and leather and fresh rain and something that she realized she’d started thinking of as distinctly Alex. It was intoxicating, and she found she had no desire to let Alex go.

After a few moments, Alex pulled back slightly—barely a few inches—and brought her fingers up to push back a strand of Maggie’s hair that had gotten stuck to her face in the rain. As Alex’s fingers curled around her ear, Maggie couldn’t help but shiver, her body reacting despite her brain’s protests.

But then Alex was leaning in, and Maggie could feel her pulse jumping, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that there might have been a little bit of truth to what M’gann and Jenna said, but Maggie wouldn’t do that—couldn’t do that—not again. So she put a hand up, breathing out Alex’s name and ignoring the way her name sounded so perfect falling from Alex’s lips in turn.

“I—I can’t.” Maggie sucked in a ragged breath, pulling herself away. “Jenna—I should—I should go.”

“Fuck.” Alex blinked, and it looked like she was coming out of some sort of haze as she turned toward her motorcycle, stumbling a few times as she muttered out a litany of apologies that didn’t stop, even when she pulled on her helmet and tore away on her bike.

Maggie waited until Alex had gone before she slumped forward, leaning up against the soaked seat of her motorcycle and willing her body to forget what it had felt like to have Alex in her arms, to have Alex leaning into her and looking at her with those warm eyes and biting at those inviting lips. Because Maggie had a girlfriend. A girlfriend that maybe didn’t want to be her girlfriend and probably for good reason, but a girlfriend nonetheless. And she liked Jenna. She wanted to date Jenna. Dating Alex…dating Alex would be a terrible idea. And what she had with Jenna was good. Jenna made her happy, and she liked to think she did the same in return. And she could be better, would be better, moving forward. She would give Alex the time and space she needed to come out on her own terms and not think that the first out lesbian she talked to was the person she liked because Maggie already knew how that one played out.

Maggie took the long way home, letting the rain soak her, chilling her to the bone before she finally went inside.

She stripped out of her wet clothes in the bathroom, hanging them over the towel rack and stepping into the shower to warm herself back up and wash away all the memories of Alex.

Maggie narrowed her eyes when she got out of the shower. Was that…was blondie running the fucking vacuum at 11 at night? After having the audacity to tell  _her_  that she’d been noisy? She pulled her towel tight around her and stormed into the bedroom, intent on pounding on their shared wall, only to stumble forward at the sound of a moan, audible even through the loud noise, of…oh god, was that a vibrator? The world’s loudest vibrator? The ensuing whimpers seemed to suggest that the answer was yes, and Maggie had to wonder if it had been purchased only to spite her. But then there was a loud gasp and a drawn out moan, and the noise stopped entirely. Well, at least she was fast.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter after Thursday's absence with some of the last times we'll see Jenna, more of M'gann, the masquerade ball, and that most awkward of reveals

On Thursday, Jenna reached out, calling to see if Maggie would want to have dinner after work on Friday, and by Friday afternoon, Maggie was a nervous wreck. But she’d said no to Alex and kept her distance, and it wasn’t even like Alex had tried to reach out since she bolted. And that was settled. Because Maggie wasn’t going to cheat on another person, and Alex clearly wasn’t thinking when it happened, so there was no need to worry about actual feelings on her end, no need to think that there was anything there. But still. Maggie wanted to make things right with Jenna, and she didn’t know how to go about doing that.

She settled on showing up in a pair of nice pants and a silk blouse with a bottle of Jenna’s favorite French wine.

Jenna answered after letting Maggie sweat it out for a few interminably long seconds. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Maggie swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I brought this for you.”

“Thanks.”

“I, um, I don’t know if you wanted to go out, or if I should have brought food, or—”

“I ordered in.” Jenna pulled the door open wider and let Maggie inside, gesturing at the containers set up on the counter and the two place settings at the table. “Didn’t really know that I wanted to have this conversation out in public.”

“Right, right.” Maggie hated every second of it—the gnawing uncertainty about where she stood, the lingering awkwardness between them, the pangs of guilt because she sort of  _was_ in the wrong, and she hadn’t entirely gotten over her stubborn crush on Alex even if she knew she would never act on it.

“How’s work been?” Jenna asked, her gaze falling to the floor as her lips twitched from one side to the other.

“Uh, you know, okay. Making some progress on a big case.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah…been doing my work at NCPD mainly, you know, delving into those reports and all that good stuff.” The unspoken “and not spending all of my time with Alex” hung in the air between them.

“I get that. Lots of research for one of the partners’ cases that’s coming up in two weeks on my end too.”

“You getting all the papercuts too?” Maggie held up her hands, revealing two little bandaids wrapped around her fingers.

Jenna snorted, her lips finally curling up into a smile. “No, we’re a little more, uh, high-tech than you guys. Most of the files are electronic these days, especially since I didn’t get stuck on discovery.”

“Guess we can’t all be that fancy,” Maggie teased back.

“Come on, dinner’s getting cold.”

The tension began easing out of the room as they piled their plates high with food and filled their glasses even higher with wine.

After a few minutes of conversation that skirted around what they needed to say, Maggie cleared her throat. “I really am sorry, you know? I never want to make you feel like you aren’t the person I want to be with, but I know that’s what I ended up doing, and I’m really sorry.”

“Thanks, I just…it’s fine if you do like her. We don’t—we don’t have to stay together.”

“No! I don’t—I’m not trying to end things.”

“You might not be, but that might be the best thing. What good does it do either of us to stay in a relationship if one person would rather be elsewhere?”

“But I don’t want to be with someone else. I like you. I like us.” Maggie ignored the niggling suspicion at the back of her mind that she might be happier with Alex. It was just some dumb “grass is always greener on the other side” bullshit.

“I guess.”

“Do you, um, do you still want to be together?”

“I think so.” Jenna toyed with a piece of chicken on her plate. “I just…you hurt my feelings, Maggie. I can’t pretend like it didn’t sting to think that…that you were thinking about someone else when we were together.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. I—it wasn’t like that, but I’m still sorry.”

Jenna nodded slowly, taking a few moments to chew and swallow before speaking again. “I still like you, and I guess…I think maybe I’d like to try to keep what we have.”

“I’d like that too.”

And that seemed to settle things—at least for the moment—so Maggie let herself relax a little, making every attempt to be as charming and attentive to Jenna as she could be.

By the end of the night, she felt better about where they stood, and even though Jenna didn’t invite her to stay, the goodbye didn’t feel like a dismissal—more like a…not yet.

When she got back to her apartment, Maggie kicked off her shoes in the doorway, forcing herself to go get a glass of water to try to preempt the particular brand of headache she always got after too much wine.

Before she’d made it more than a couple of steps, there was a soft knock at her door. Maggie shut her eyes and took in a few calming breaths, preparing herself to deal with blondie. Honestly, she didn’t understand what the problem could possibly be. It wasn’t like there’d been anything happening in her apartment the past week unless somehow the single-serve bag of popcorn she made the night before had done it.

“Hello?”

But when Maggie blinked, the wine making her sluggish and muddling her thoughts, it wasn’t blondie at her door.

“Remember how I said I might need to talk to you?” M’gann asked, looking slightly nervous—a far cry from the self-possessed Martian Maggie knew her to be.

“Yeah.”

“I do.”

Maggie opened and closed her eyes a few times, shaking some of the heaviness out of her head before pulling the door open further. “Yeah, I, uh, come in, come in.”

“Are you sure? You look like you’re on your way out.”

“No, no, just getting home. Dinner with Jenna,” she supplied.

“How was it?

“Um, you know.” M’gann furrowed her eyebrows, and it hit Maggie that she didn’t know. “We had a bit of a fight last week. But I think we’re okay again.”

“I see. If tonight’s a bad night…”

“No! Seriously, let me have a glass of water to clear my head, and I promise, you’ve got my full attention.”

M’gann nodded, walking into the apartment and perching on the edge of the sofa. “We won’t bother your neighbor speaking this late at night? I wouldn’t want you to get another note…”

Maggie shook her head at the teasing smile on M’gann’s lips. “First of all, we’re far enough away from her wall that she could only hear if she were an alien.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“More importantly,” Maggie interjected, holding a finger aloft, “she’s been the noisy one lately.”

“That so?”

“Oh yeah.” Maggie took a sip of water, ignoring the drops that sloshed over the edge onto her shirt. “Not only does blondie set off that fucking smoke detector at least once a week, she also apparently bought herself some sex toy with the horsepower of a goddam chainsaw. I swear, M’gann, this thing is louder than any human could ever be.”

M’gann let out a little hum and bit at her lower lip to keep from grinning. “And here we are, talking about your neighbor’s vibrator when only a week ago you, being oh so proper, struggled to tell me that you had sex with your girlfriend without calling it ‘you know.’”

“I…whatever. Blondie is loud, okay? She can fuck right on off with the holier than thou, I don’t make any noise attitude.”

M’gann chuckled and rolled her eyes, waiting for Maggie to finish her water before gesturing at the couch. “I think I know where that drug you asked about is being distributed.”

“Wait. What? Really?”

M’gann nodded.

“How do you know?”

“Have you heard of Roulette? Real name, Veronica Sinclair?”

“Yeah, ties to pretty much every politician and rich person in town? We’ve never been able to get any charges to stick.”

“Sounds about right,” M’gann muttered. “She’s been running a kind of underground alien show—first it was just putting them on display, then it was having them fight. But these days…it’s gotten bigger. More money. More people. More aliens.” M’gann shook her head. “The fights don’t always end with a three-count. I’ve seen aliens killed in the ring, and she’s encouraging it.”

“M’gann, how do you know about this?”

“That’s not what should concern you. Now that Roulette has wealthier patrons coming in to place bets on the fights, she wants bigger, better, splashier shows. She’s started offering steroids to her fighters. They make the aliens stronger, but apparently they also get more violent, more prone to angry outbursts, even outside of the ring.” She ran her fingers through her hair and breathed deeply in through her nose. “We’ve seen it in the bar—more fights breaking out between the guys you’d never expect it from—that sort of thing.”

“And it’s coming from Roulette?”

“Her or her men. I’m not sure how it’s getting distributed past a first dose.”

“Right, of course not. Why would you know?”

The muscles in M’gann’s jaw tensed and her nails dug into her thighs. “The aliens fighting—you can’t blame them. Most have reasons… The ones who have been dragged in from the early days aren’t all there voluntarily. And some of them thought it would be something small—something they could walk away from after a few wins, some easy cash.”

Maggie nodded. “Is she…should we be looking into kidnappings?”

“Not these days, no. And I don’t know…it wasn’t necessarily kidnapping before either. Maybe sometimes. But it was more subtle. Blackmail. Veiled threats. Promises of a better life. You know how it goes.”

“Yeah.” Maggie tried to sift through her thoughts. She wished she’d never had anything to drink. “So how do we…can we find these fight clubs?”

“I might have a way to get you in once.”

“Really?”

“I need to pull a few strings, find out if certain connections are still in place. And then there’s the matter of the date and location—they always change, and they aren’t announced until a few days before the event.”

Maggie shut her eyes, willing away the headache she could feel expanding out from the base of her skull.

M’gann was on her feet before Maggie had even opened her eyes again. “I should go.”

“Wait! Are you…is everything okay?”

“I’m fine. You be safe.”

\---

Maggie was in the middle of sifting through every old case file they had on Roulette, grumbling at how many of them had been purged or redacted or conveniently “misplaced” over the years, when her phone chimed with a message.

 **Alex:** I’m sorry again. Talking to my sister today. Thanks for your help with everything. Sorry.

Maggie could almost hear Alex’s voice—the jumble of words falling from her lips, the bite of self-loathing as she shook her head and apologized, the tangle of her fingers as she fidgeted with her hands. Maggie wanted to reach out and insist that it was okay, that she would always be there because no one deserved to go through it alone. She wanted Alex to know that no matter what happened with Kara, no matter how she took it, Alex was still good, that there was nothing anyone else could say that could turn her moment of self-discovery into something shameful to be hidden away. But Jenna’s face swam in her thoughts, the little hitch in her breathing as she admitted that she had been hurt by Maggie replaying over and over again.

Eventually Maggie settled on something simple. A reiteration that things were okay between them and a promise that she was there, even if it wasn’t quite so enthusiastic as it might once have been.

 **Maggie:**  It’s fine. Hope everything goes well with Kara. Let me know if you need to talk afterwards.

She got nothing in reply and soon returned her attention to the boxes of files, then spent a long few hours spent online in chat forums for aliens and a few decidedly more stomach churning ventures into message boards for the kinds of people who would absolutely love to watch aliens tear each other apart for sport.

Another message from Alex interrupted her perusal of one of the worst sites, and she found herself grateful for the distraction.

 **Alex:**  She took it really well. Sort of already knew, actually. Hope you’re having a nice weekend.

Maggie smiled down at her phone. Good. Alex deserved to have positive reactions and supportive family members. She didn’t need Maggie confusing her and making her think that her excitement about the newness of it all was anything more than that.

\---

Maggie got lunch with Jenna on Monday and dinner with her on Tuesday and even made it back to her apartment on Wednesday for a long night spent between Jenna’s legs making it up to her.

She woke up the next morning with a crick in her neck and a text from M’gann letting her know that she was at her apartment waiting to talk.

“Hey, I’ve gotta go—someone’s waiting to talk to me about a case,” Maggie whispered, pressing a soft kiss to Jenna’s temple.

“That someone Alex?” Jenna asked, her voice muffled by the pillow

“No…this someone is maybe in a bit of trouble, but I’m gonna help.”

“Be safe.”

“I will.”

Maggie pulled on her clothes in the dark and slipped out in silence, making sure the doorknob was locked and hoping that was enough—at least for the 30 more minutes Jenna had before she needed to be up for work herself.

When Maggie got back to her apartment, she found M’gann waiting outside the building and brought her upstairs. “What do—”

M’gann shook her head. “Inside.”

Once they were through the door, M’gann relaxed slightly, pulling out a small piece of cardstock and handing it over to Maggie along with a post-it note, an address scrawled across it. “Tonight. All the way to the east of town at one of those big abandoned warehouses.”

“Roulette?”

M’gann nodded. “There’s no fight tonight, but you can get a sense for the crowd, the security, the type of events she throws. It’s a masquerade ball, so that should help if you need to get in a second time without being recognized.”

“Thank you. Seriously, thank you so much.”

“Are you…I need to know you’ll be safe, Maggie.”

“Like you said, it’s just a party, right? I can do that.”

“Maggie, it’s never just anything with her. She is”—M’gann paused, considering her words—“ruthlessly efficient at getting what she wants.”

“Can you please tell me what’s going on?” Maggie pleaded. “The full story.”

M’gann faltered in her pacing before sinking down into one of the chairs and rubbing at her temples. “I may have fought for her once or twice.”

“Did she threaten you? We can stop her. I can get a warrant, or have you testify, or—”

“It isn’t so simple. I have…reasons that you don’t need to understand.”

“But—”

“I’m keeping myself safe. I know how to do what I need to do to get by. I don’t take the steroids. I don’t volunteer for more on the off chance that I’ll make money. I do what I need to do to pay my debt and get out. That’s all.”

Maggie wanted to say more, wanted to throw herself between M’gann and Roulette and anyone else who would threaten her, but she also knew M’gann would never let her help if it meant putting herself on the line. And Maggie got it. Hell, she figured she probably got it more than most. It was one of the things that drew her to M’gann in the first place. But it didn’t make it any easier to sit back and know that M’gann was in danger every month or two. She swallowed heavily and felt her resolve settle into something solid—motivation to end this fast enough that she would never have to fight again.

“You have a plus one on that invitation. Would you like…I could come with you. In disguise. Be protection.”

Maggie folded her arms across her chest and shook her head with a stern glare. “I am not bringing an alien into some warehouse party run by an alien-hating criminal who is already blackmailing you or whatever she’s doing.”

M’gann parted her lips, but then shut them, seemingly thinking better of it.

“I’ll be okay. I’ve got someone I trust.”

M’gann’s mouth pulled tight. “Okay.”

“Thank you for this, though. I really do appreciate it.”

“If anyone could cut through all her money and influence and get her, it’d be you.”

With a wave of her hand, Maggie scoffed. “Please, I don’t—it’s not—”

“You do. You care about justice being done, Maggie. And that matters.”

Maggie scuffed at the carpet with her boots. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

M’gann cleared her throat then and gave Maggie a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “See things are going well with Jenna again?” She flicked her wrist, gesturing at the slightly rumpled clothes.

“Oh, er, yeah…yeah, I think they’re going better.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“Yeah…yeah, no, it’s good.”

M’gann furrowed her brows and looked ready to say something when a loud buzzing cut through the silence. “Is that…?”

Maggie took a few steps and poked her head through the door to her bedroom, hearing a muffled whimper. “Yeah.”

“Oh. You weren’t kidding about the sound.”

“No…no, I was not.”

“I think I’m gonna…” M’gann gestured with her thumb at the door.

“Yeah, no, that’s for the best. I’m gonna follow you out.”

“No breakfast today?” M’gann teased.

“I can stop somewhere.”

\---

Once Maggie had gotten settled in at work with a coffee and a bagel (and endured the laughing comments and offered high fives about showing up in the same clothes she had left in the day before), Maggie pulled out her phone and sent a text to Alex: “Got a lead. 8pm meet me in front of P.J.’s. And look nice.” 

After sending it, Maggie paused. Did it sound like a date? No, she was very clear about starting out by specifying that it was a lead, and that meant work. She didn’t want to say too much after the hack NCPD had gone through a few months back—even if it turned out to have been some old detective who clicked on a link in a spam email, not a targeted attack on the precinct—but she hoped Alex would understand that it was business. Business that required fancy clothing because it was also a masquerade ball where they would be going as pretend dates, but that was fine.

She spent the whole day on edge thinking about contingency plans for the evening. She told Captain Owens that she’d be following up on a lead for the case and gave him the location, praying that he wasn’t one of the corrupt cops in Roulette’s pocket. He hadn’t given any indication that he was yet, but sometimes it was so difficult to tell.

Unlike her usual routine, Maggie left her desk as soon as the clock hit 5:30, stopping at a party supply store for two masks before heading home to shower and find something that would pass muster with Roulette and the types of people she attracted. She landed on a sleeveless black dress and drove away all thoughts about whether or not Alex might like it or think she looked good in it. She finished the look off with a knife strapped to the side of her thigh and hoped they wouldn’t have metal detectors or security guards checking for weapons.

Figuring it was as ready as she was going to get, Maggie grabbed the keys to her car—no use trying to ride a motorcycle in a dress, especially not with Alex on the back, though that was an image—that she definitely did not need to see. She shook her head and drove the whole way there with the windows cracked open to try to clear her mind.

She arrived a few minutes early and turned on the flashers, getting out to peek inside the bar and make sure Alex hadn’t gone looking for her, but there was no sign of her yet.

A few minutes later, she heard a voice from behind her that sounded suspiciously like, “Wow,” but she knew that had to be her mind playing tricks on her. She blinked at the sight of Alex’s blue dress, the little diamond cut out showcasing a few inches of smooth skin that Maggie could imagine—no, nothing. She needed to pull it together.

“You clean up nice.” She cringed internally. Bringing attention to her own appreciation of Alex’s looks was the last thing she should be doing.

“Thanks. So do you with, you know, the shoes and the hair and all.” Maggie couldn’t help but preen a little under the praise. “What, uh, what are we doing here?”

Maggie waited until they were in the car and leaving before she explained the whole situation about potentially compromised work phones and got into the details about their night. “I got a tip about this masquerade ball being run by Roulette. Heard of her?” She was pleased at the angry noise that escaped Alex’s lips.

“Notorious for alien trafficking, right?”

“And notorious for having enough money and knowing enough important people to never be caught? Yeah, that’d be the one,” Maggie sighed.

“What about her?”

Maggie wound her way around the information, trying to tie the whole story together without compromising M’gann’s identity and involvement. There were kernels of truth in there—the drug  _did_  make aliens stronger and more violent, and M’gann  _did_  confirm that the Syvillian had been killed in the ring, and Maggie  _did_  spend a long time in the bar chasing down leads, even if they hadn’t been what panned out and got her the conclusions and invitation she needed. The theory about Cadmus was all Alex’s. Even though Maggie suspected it was likely right, she hadn’t told M’gann that half of the story yet. She wanted some form of proof first that didn’t collapse into: a secret agent from an anti-alien organization thinks this more secret, more anti-alien organization is involved.

As they drove further out of town, Maggie went over the plan: get in, make contacts, poke around, find information if they could, get out without incident. She stumbled over her words slightly when she had to explain that Alex would be her date for the evening, and Alex’s high-pitched reply suggested she hadn’t forgotten the previous week’s incident either.

Eventually the forced small talk gave way to questions about the case once more.

Maggie listened as Alex spoke about her attempts at devising an antidote to the steroid and the progress she was making—or not making, as she quickly clarified with frustrated little huff. “It attacks the compound, so that's something, but it doesn’t kill it yet. At least it’s better than my first go at it where it somehow merged and mutated into something so much deadlier.”

Maggie found herself laughing at the nonchalance of Alex’s tone as she talked about making mutant poisons. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.” Neither of them pointed out that it wasn’t all that long ago that they were definitely both on each other’s bad sides. Things were already tense enough as they tried to navigate whatever space they occupied in a post-almost-kiss that Maggie might have returned if she didn’t have a girlfriend but that Alex probably only tried because she was caught up in the moment and the heightened emotions of coming out and all of that.

“Be there soon,” Maggie mentioned as she checked her phone’s map again, watching as they neared the little red pin on the side of the road. She hated how far removed they were from civilization and other people if anything went wrong. Then again, she supposed, maybe the DEO had resources that could get in a lot faster than Maggie’s team. Hopefully they wouldn’t need to find out.

A lot full of nice cars was an even better indicator that they were in the right spot than the chirp of her phone, and Maggie pulled into a spot in a less crowded area, hoping they could get away quickly if need be.

She adjusted her own mask and looked over at Alex. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Maggie felt that sentiment on a spiritual level.

When they got out of the car, Maggie reached out a hand for Alex’s, guiding her forward and ignoring how well their fingers seemed to fit together, how strong Alex’s hands were, how soft they still felt even with the callous or two.

The whole time the guard inspected their invitation, Maggie held her breath, only letting it out once they had made it through the door into a ballroom that looked plucked from some Disney movie. But a Disney movie based on the real books, not the actual movies where all the darkness got hidden away behind cute talking animals and fair-skinned princesses and princes that sometimes looked effeminate enough for Maggie to think that in another world, they were all chivalrous butches there to find true love.

At the sight of aliens in cages—some aliens she knew and recognized in cages—her stomach churned, threatening to expel the few bites of dinner she’d managed to eat before getting dressed. She clutched Alex’s hand tighter and found herself grateful to Alex for being there, especially when she whispered soothing reassurances to Maggie. She didn’t necessarily believe them, but it was nice having someone who cared enough to offer them, especially when that someone was working to help make them a reality.

With every new person they talked to, Maggie felt her hatred of all the guests surging up. The fucking nonchalance and indifference as they looked around at the aliens like they were some sort of spectacle to be kept in cages and prodded at with sticks and cheered for only when they were attacking each other for humans’ entertainment…it made Maggie sick. They were all so self-righteous, standing there and pointing at the cages and acting like they were the biggest threat to civilization, not greed or hatred or even fucking global warming, but a goddam alien who’d been injected with enough drugs to go out and fight and maybe even kill for the hope of cash they needed to survive.

She was grateful to Alex for carrying their act without her more often than she would have liked. She tried to smile politely and act interested, but it was beyond difficult when her muscles trembled with the restrained urge to shove the people around her, and her jaw ached from grinding her teeth together to keep from yelling.

Eventually they managed to get a bit of information from some dull man who thought he was charming, confirming that Roulette gave the aliens the drugs to make them bulk up and turn them violent—or more violent, as he would have clarified. Then there were the incentives M’gann had hinted at—cash, probably more of the steroids, maybe something that looked like a cheap approximation of freedom.

Once the man disappeared, Maggie led them back away from the crowds, stopping here and there to put down their cups and look at the hors d’oeuvres before slipping into the hallway that wrapped around the back of the warehouse by the bathrooms and down to the row of makeshift offices they found there.

Without being asked, Alex set to work on some of the locked file cabinets while Maggie searched in the handful of open drawers, pulling out promotional materials for upcoming fights and brackets that showed off rankings and past victories and future matches. She hated how many names she recognized—names of aliens she hadn’t seen at the bar in a month or two, sometimes longer. She wondered if they’d ever come back, ever be able to come back. Her gaze got caught on one name in particular: M’gann M’orzz, The Last Daughter of Mars, 3-0. She forced herself to keep going, though, snapping pictures of everything to examine more closely later.

They kept going down the row of offices, finding some financial documents that Alex seemed to think could be useful, plus one or two maps of the city with a few flagged locations that Maggie thought might be potential sites for future fights or events.

While she was looking up one of the addresses on her phone, she heard the telltale clunk of heavy boots along the floor. “Fuck,” she muttered under her breath, tugging at Alex’s hand and glancing at the door they’d shut behind them, wondering if they could slip out. But the sounds were coming towards them, and there was only one way in and out of the room.

“I have a gun.” Alex’s voice was barely audible, but Maggie caught the words. A gun definitely gave them a better chance in a fight than her knife would.

“Where?”

The footsteps grew closer and closer, and Maggie could feel her heart pounding in her chest, her muscles tensing with the surge of adrenaline.

“Thigh holster.” 

Before Alex could get to it, Maggie’s skin prickled at the sound of a key in the lock she already knew was undone.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered—both to Alex and Jenna—as she sank to her knees and let her hands slip under the hem of Alex’s dress, sliding along muscular thighs that tensed at her touch.

Alex crashed into the desk behind her as the door swung open.

Maggie ignored Alex’s curses as she found the strap to the thigh holster and maneuvered the gun out of it. “Babe,” she whined, ignoring the way it felt so right to call Alex that, “what’s wrong?”

“I, um, there,” Alex stammered, pointing in front of her to where Maggie hoped there was only one guard.

With a gasp of faked fright, Maggie snapped her head around, feeling a wave of relief crash over her when she saw that it was only one man. Not that he was small.

When his hand came up to his earpiece and his lips parted, Maggie acted on instinct, aiming her gun at his shin and shooting, getting ready to bolt the moment the noise attracted everyone’s attention. Only the sound was muffled, and Maggie couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the fact that Alex had brought a gun with a fucking silencer out without even asking Maggie where they were going or if it would be dangerous.

Once Alex had the guard disarmed and restrained with his own handcuffs, she took her gun back and handed Maggie the guard’s, guiding her back out of the room and down the hallway before anyone could come looking for them or their missing guard.

Maggie grimaced at the sight of the makeshift arena that had been set up in the middle of the room. She didn’t recognize either of the aliens fighting, but she made a point of trying to remember their faces to get word out to their family and friends if she heard of anyone looking for them.

Alex took the lead in coming up with excuses for their early departure, whining about a headache and pointing Maggie towards the exit.

The fresh air helped to calm Maggie’s racing thoughts a little, but it wasn’t until they were a mile out that Maggie felt like she could breathe again.

Alex seemed unconvinced by her assurances that she was fine, and Maggie had to admit—she wasn’t. Not really. She wouldn’t be until that whole operation was shut down and everyone involved with it thrown behind bars.

“Are you okay to go to the alien bar?” It wasn’t part of the schedule, but Maggie knew as soon as she said it that it’s where she needed to be. “This isn’t quite how I was planning on introducing you to it, but I need to get out some warnings, maybe try to get information from the ones who have been fighting already.”

“Of course. You know you’ve got me. Always.”

For the first time since they’d pulled into the lot, Maggie found herself smiling. “You know, I never thought I worked well with a partner. Certainly didn’t like it when the captain made me do it. But you and I?” She tilted her head in consideration. “We might actually work.”

\---

“Dollywood,” Maggie repeated into the vent, waiting for the door to swing open.

Wide-eyed, Alex wandered in behind Maggie, taking in the dive bar aesthetic and its unique clientele, the smells of alien liquors and the flickers of conversations in languages she’d never heard.

Maggie was pleased to see that her gun remained holstered, realizing that Alex looked more curious than anything. There was some anxiety, sure, but Maggie didn’t imagine there were many places where Alex could go in with no idea about what she would find or who would be there and not be anxious. She certainly couldn’t do it—too many years of training in the importance of familiarity and clear expectations to let her guard down.

Maggie’s first attempts at conversation with the bar’s patrons were met with stony silence, many of them looking warily at Alex—another human, even if they had no idea she was DEO. A few of the others seemed willing to talk until Maggie hit up against certain words—Roulette, fight club, steroids, R, missing aliens—and suddenly they knew nothing.

Finally Brian, a well-intentioned guy who enjoyed gambling a bit too much for his own good, brought Maggie and Alex over to a corner table with a few aliens who Maggie vaguely recognized from a bust of a gambling ring half a year ago. As they walked, Brian explained that they knew a bit about how everything worked from placing bets on the fights themselves.

“Makes ’em stronger,” one of the lankier aliens at the table chimed in about the steroids.

“All the new fighters get a little, so now it’s worth putting some money down on them if you think they’ve got enough skill to go toe-to-toe with someone you know,” another added.

“You hear that Draaga’s only 2 away from hitting 10?”

“Think he’ll take the money and walk or stick around?”

The first alien shrugged. “He liked fighting for fighting’s sake even before the steroids. Now he’s a fuckin’ machine.”

Once the talk deteriorated into the odds a given fighter had against another, Maggie muttered her thanks to Brian and excused herself, shuffling down the bar to where she’d seen Elyssa eying her.

“Hey, how are you?”

Elyssa shrugged. “Not great.”

“What’s going on? Is it something I can help you with?”

“Maybe.”

Maggie couldn’t help the way her eyebrows shot up at the answer. Elyssa always said no, insisting that she was fine or would be fine; she never wanted to be an imposition, and she didn’t much want to accept help from an outsider. “Just tell me how, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“One of my cousins—Roulette got to him.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s…he’s doing it for us. If he wins, he gets a cut of the proceeds, and if he wins a certain number of matches, he’ll make enough to get us out from under the bridge.”

Maggie swallowed heavily. Roulette sure knew how to tempt the aliens into signing up and making it look voluntary. “Has he started fighting?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. But he said he will soon—as early as this next month.”

“And the steroids?”

“Will be given to him before the fight.”

“Please—please try to keep him from taking them.”

Elyssa worried her lower lip between her teeth, her fingers coming up to rub at the ridges across her forehead. “But if taking them could keep him safe…”

“I promise, we’re going to work to keep them all safe, but the steroids…they’re not themselves anymore. That’s what everyone is saying.”

“We’ll see.”

Maggie nodded in understanding. “If you hear anything else about Roulette or the matches, you know how to get in touch with me, right?”

“I do.”

“Alright. Be safe, okay?”

With one last goodbye to Elyssa, Maggie made her way down the bar, finding a couple of aliens willing to talk to her about why they fought. She was fairly certain one had taken at least a dose or two of the steroids already by the way he lunged at her and Alex—apparently for the fun of it—and growled as he talked to them. The other one was quieter, subdued, more resigned to his fate than anything else. Maggie found herself more interested in watching the transformation of Alex’s expression as she listened to him talk about his inability to find work as an alien, the meager wages he made hauling boxes and handling dangerous machinery at the old factories. When it came time to put in the final push for him not to take the drugs and to try to wait for them to help, it was Alex who pleaded most ardently, who looked the most concerned about his well-being, and Maggie tried to ignore the way Alex’s concern made her heart soften and beat a little more quickly.

Eventually Maggie wandered down the bar towards M’gann. She hadn’t expected her to say anything—not with Alex nearby—but she shrugged at Maggie, admitting to getting involved even if she remained tight-lipped about the reasons. She was more concerned about the steroids than anything else, having seen their effects up close in the ring and in the bar. “That drug…” she trailed off, shaking her head with a grimace. “They don’t come back from it. One dose isn’t enough to change them, but it’s enough to get them hooked. And suddenly they don’t care that it was about getting enough wins to get their cash and get out. Suddenly the fight is enough. It's all they care about.”

“And then they end up on the streets, terrorizing National City,” Alex surmised.

Maggie cringed, wondering how noticeable it would be if she kicked Alex in the shins. Because she got it—Alex was the one in charge of going out and putting her life on the line to try to stop the drugged up aliens before they killed someone, and Maggie had already heard about at least one DEO agent who’d been killed while trying to intervene in a particularly vicious attack a week back. But she also knew exactly how it would sound to M’gann, who hadn’t seen the way Alex had grown, the way she seemed to be pushing back against some of the DEO’s previously unquestioned policies. Instead, she saw the horrors the alien community was subjected to, experienced enough of them herself even as someone who could pass when she chose to.

M’gann glanced at Maggie with an arch of her eyebrow before turning the full weight of her glare on Alex. “Or dead.”

“And we’re trying to keep that from happening,” Maggie said, her voice clear and firm as she guided Alex backwards and turned towards M’gann once more. “I just…there’s a list of new recruits. If I give it to you, any chance you can keep an eye out for them? Try to stop them from taking the drugs if you can.”

“I make no promises, but for you, Maggie, I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” Maggie murmured, reaching out and squeezing M’gann’s hand before they left.

As they walked to the door, Maggie felt unsettled; there were still so many questions left unanswered and aliens left unprotected, and she never seemed to be able to do enough.

“We got a lot of answers tonight,” Alex murmured. “I’ve got plenty to take back with me to the office, and you have new information to get warnings out to the aliens who need it—it’s going to help, okay?” Maggie shrugged. “And, hey, I’m still working on an antidote so that we can help even the ones who do take the steroids, and hopefully we’ll be able to stop the next fight from happening.”

“I guess.”

Alex reached out an arm, pulling Maggie into a side hug as they weaved through the small clusters of aliens to the door.

Maggie caught sight of Darla a half-second before she barreled into Alex, waiting until she was flustered to look her up and down. She let out a derisive snort of laughter as she turned to Maggie. “You move on fast.”

“What…?” Alex asked, looking between Maggie and Darla. 

“She’s my ex,” Maggie explained, dragging Alex the last couple of steps until they were out the door and safe in the fresh air.

“Your ex?”

Maggie tried not to roll her eyes as she unlocked the car. It was all new to Alex, and maybe the whole reminder about dating aliens still came as a surprise. “Yeah.” She turned the key in the ignition, checking in the mirrors before carefully pulling out of the alley and turning down one of the side streets.

“She’s my neighbor’s ex.”

Remembering the comment about Alex’s lesbian neighbors, Maggie almost pointed out that the lesbian community was small and she should probably get used to it, but then the moment of realization hit her like a freight train. There was the comment about shitty neighbors and being kept up late and…oh god. “Did you… Where do you live?” Maggie wondered if her voice was as breathy and high-pitched out loud as it was in her head. She didn’t even notice that the car had slowed to a near stop.

But then Alex’s jaw was dropping, and she was staring at Maggie like she was some sort of ghost. “Oh my god. Are  _you_ 404?”

“You’re 403?” Maggie’s heart thundered in her chest as she mentally replayed all of their anonymous interactions.

“You’re the one who has all the loud sex against my bedroom wall?” Alex yelped.

Maggie felt her cheeks flush with humiliation, thinking back on the notes she’d let Jenna slip beneath blondie’s door—no, wait, Alex’s door. “At least I’m not the one who took the whole ‘fuck me gently with a chainsaw’ line as an instruction manual based on what I hear coming through your wall.”

Alex spluttered then, and Maggie almost felt guilty for bringing it up. “I—that was—that was twice! And I didn't know you were home!”

Maggie let out a shaky exhale as she hit the gas again, jolting them forward. “Guess I don’t have to ask where to take you at the end of the night, huh?”

As Maggie drove, she tried to keep her face schooled into a mask of indifference even as she traced through everything that had ever happened in light of this new revelation. There was the growing annoyance on Alex’s part that made a little more sense. After all, she clearly hadn’t been getting laid, and then almost as soon as she started to ask questions about why that was and who she might actually like to be having sex with, her neighbor started having a lot of sex. With another woman. Against her bedroom wall.

Maggie could feel her breath catch in her throat at the realization that Alex had spent that morning in bed with her vibrator, that those muffled moans had come out of that mouth. Maggie inhaled deeply, trying not to think about what they had sounded like only to find that it was like being told not to picture a polar bear because then it was all she could think about. And then she was thinking about the other time—that time right after she’d pushed Alex away in the rain. Could it have been because…? No. No, clearly Alex was just…she had wanted sex. Or intimacy. Or something. And that had to have been the only reason she reached out for Maggie in the parking lot, and when she couldn’t have Maggie, she went for the next-best thing. That had to be it.

Maggie nearly missed the turn for their block, so engrossed as she was in her thoughts. She focused on the task of finding a spot and parking and locking up the car to keep herself from thinking about Alex…naked in her bedroom…with a vibrator…making herself feel good enough that her moans carried through the wall… _Fuck_.

“Sorry.”

“What?” Maggie asked, having barely heard the whisper.

“I’m sorry for the, um, note.” Alex’s gaze didn’t leave her feet.

“Oh. Uh…me too.” She didn’t think it would make Alex feel any better to know that the notes had been half from Jenna. “Also for the volume. I didn’t realize…the last guy that lived there never said anything.”

“Yeah, the, uh, walls are pretty thin, I think.”

“Yeah…I’d say they definitely are.”

“Right.” Alex tapped her foot. “So, um, good night.”

“Night,” Maggie murmured, waiting as Alex hightailed it up the stairs before beginning a much slower ascent herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience on this one! I've finally settled into the new apartment (and gotten my key stuck in the lock once already) and will be back to the normal schedule barring any emergencies. Let me know how you like the chapter from Maggie's perspective!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nb: rest of the fic dropped all at once, but ao3 will probably only send out the one email about this chapter.

“It’s great having you here, really, but do you think I could have tonight to myself?” Jenna asked over breakfast after what Maggie realized was her fifth night in a row at Jenna’s apartment.

“Right, yeah, no, sorry. Of course.”

“It’s fine. I just have a few things I need to do—cleaning, catching up with a couple of friends, stuff like that.”

“Right, totally. I didn’t realize how long I’d been here.” She sort of did, though. Because she hadn’t wanted to set foot in her apartment where she would be forced to confront everything that came with the newfound revelation about her neighbor. And her neighbor’s moans that had been replaying in her dreams with increasing regularity. And her neighbor’s frustrations with her sex life that made Maggie blush at the same time they made her curious about what her neighbor might have thought about what she heard through the wall.

That day at work, she ran into Alex at another crime scene—not that they really talked when they saw each other these days. Once more, Alex relayed information through colleagues, much like she had done the past couple of times, save for a few vital details that she’d stammered through, eyes averted and fingers twitching.

By the second week, though, concern won out over embarrassment. Maggie wanted to know how Alex was doing, wanted to find out if the coming out was still going well, wanted to see if Alex had told anyone else and how they had taken it. Hell, she wanted to know stupid little things, like whether or not Alex had ever made it to that new Italian restaurant or if she’d gotten caught up on Game of Thrones with Kara. She wanted to hear how Alex was doing with her ongoing attempts to create an antidote and assure her that it was probably far more progress than she’d acknowledge herself. So more and more, Maggie found herself heading to crime scenes on her off days or tuning in to CatCo to find out if Supergirl was on the scene anywhere just to see if Alex and her DEO buddies might be there for cleanup.

By the third week, Maggie found out that Jenna had noticed.

While they were out to dinner, Maggie reached out, placing her hand on Jenna’s. “How’s your week been?”

Silence.

“Jenna?”

Jenna looked up, her lips pursed and her expression guarded.

“What’s up?”

“Oh nothing. Just waiting for you to check your phone.”

Maggie tilted her head to the side, brow furrowing. “I don’t—”

“We haven’t made it through a date in two weeks without you running off.”

Pulling her hand back, Maggie folded her arms over her chest. A familiar surge of defensiveness welled up inside of her. “I thought you understood my job. I’ve never given you a hard time when work kept you late.”

“I understood your _job_ just fine, Maggie.” Maggie felt herself recoil at the hardness of Jenna’s tone. Each word sprung from her lips with a crisp, cold clarity that left Maggie feeling like one of her own suspects who didn’t yet know what the evidence was but could tell something damning was coming. “What you’re doing now? This isn’t work.”

“I’m going to cases.”

“Yeah, cases that aren’t yours. Cases on your days off. Cases when your captain specifically told you that you didn’t need to go.” Maggie swallowed heavily. “You’re going any time you think Alex will be there.”

“Jenna, that’s not—”

Maggie jumped slightly at the resounding clatter of Jenna’s fork being thrown to her plate. “You are not going to sit there and lie to my face. I deserve better than that.”

Maggie felt a rush of self-hatred wash over her at the shimmer of unshed tears in Jenna’s eyes. Because she _was_ lying—to Jenna and to herself—and Jenna did deserve better.

“Check please,” Maggie muttered at their passing waiter who had, Maggie assumed, been drawn over by the angry shout-whispering coming from their table and the askance glances of those around them.

“What? You catch some headline about an alien downtown and decide you need to go rush off to see if the woman you actually like is around?”

“Jenna, please.”

“We’re having this conversation, Maggie. I don’t care if you don’t want to. You’ve been stringing me along for too fucking long.”

“I know, I just…not here? Please.”

“Fine.”

Maggie paid for the check when it arrived, leaving a generous tip as an apology before following Jenna out of the restaurant and into her car. It only took a few minutes before Maggie noticed they were headed to her place.

“Why are we—”

“I don’t want you in my space right now.” Jenna’s voice was low, her tone flat. The tears from earlier had disappeared, replaced with a resigned look that Maggie knew all too well.

“Okay.”

The last few blocks were spent in silence, but the moment they were through the door of Maggie’s apartment, Jenna rounded on her. “I want an honest answer. Do you like her? Would you rather be with her than me?”

“Jenna.”

“Tell me! You cancel dates to be with her. You talk about her constantly. You fucking called me her name during sex!” With each sentence, Jenna’s voice rose in pitch, and she strode toward the bedroom, already pulling out the few items of clothing she’d left in Maggie’s drawers. “I am not going to be your—”

The shushing noise left Maggie’s lips before she was conscious of what she was doing, and oh god, the look of pure rage that flashed in Jenna’s eyes did not suggest anything good would come of it. “Please,” Maggie pleaded, trying to keep her voice soft as she gestured at the wall by way of explanation. “Please, let’s go to the living room, okay?”

“Are you kidding me? You’re more concerned with some fucking neighbor maybe possibly hearing us argue than you are about losing this relationship?” Jenna’s hands balled up into fists, her whole body shaking with the force of her anger. “God, this is all proof of how little you care, Maggie.”

“I do care!”

“About her, maybe.”

Maggie let out a shuddering exhale, sinking down to the sofa and resigning herself to a long night of well-deserved criticisms.

“I’m so fucking stupid.” Jenna shook her head, running her fingers through her hair and looking up at the ceiling to keep tears from falling. “I let myself believe you when you said it didn’t mean anything, that her name was just on your mind—nothing more.”

“You’re not stupid.”

“No, I really, really am. I have to be to have stayed with someone so clearly in love with someone else for as long as I did.”

“I’m not—no, Jenna, it’s not like that. I wasn’t lying to you when I—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Maggie watched as the hurt was replaced by anger in a second. “After all this, you’re going to sit there and act like I’m wrong and lie to my face again? You’ve got to be borderline sociopathic to try to pull a stunt like that.”

All Maggie could do was sit and listen and wait and wonder if Alex could hear every word echoing through that wall.

Eventually, Jenna left, her belongings gathered into a bag, and Maggie curled up on the couch and put on some shitty television and fell asleep still bathed in the soft glow of the screen.

The next few days passed slowly as Maggie slipped back into the single life, cleaning her apartment and catching up on shows she’d missed and trying to forget just how awful she’d been, stringing Jenna along for weeks knowing that she didn’t yet have a handle on her crush on Alex. Not that she would ever have acted on it. But still. Jenna deserved someone who would put her first, not treat her like some momentary distraction.

As the days passed, Maggie began to hear signs of life coming from Alex’s apartment too. Never _certain_ signs of life, but little things like laughter and the muffled sound of something playing on the television. It wasn’t the friendship she’d once hoped for, but it was nice sometimes to think that they were hanging out, watching television, existing in each other’s general proximity. She felt a little less alone.

On Monday night, Maggie’s phone rang.

“Sawyer.”

“That’s how you answer an old friend?” M’gann teased.

Maggie pulled the phone back and looked at the caller ID. “This isn’t your normal number.”

“No, I got a burner. Is your line safe?”

“Can’t make promises.”

Maggie was met with silence for a moment before the line disconnected. Two minutes later, there was a soft knock at her door. A quick glance through the peephole confirmed that it was M’gann.

“Hey, come in.” Maggie pulled the door open wide and gestured to the living room before shutting and locking the door behind them. “What’s up?”

“I think I have someone who would be helpful to you for the case.”

“Really?” Maggie pulled her feet under her as she sank down onto the couch beside M’gann.

“He goes by Quill. He’s a little…paranoid.”

“Hence the burner?”

“Yeah.” M’gann folded her hands in her lap. “He fights, but not so much by choice these days, and he’s never taken the steroids.”

“And you think he might be able to help?”

“I think the more fighters you can get who don’t support Roulette, the better you’ll be down the line. And it’s better if you’re getting information from multiple sources. Roulette…she doesn’t trust me.”

“Wait. Does she know that you’re friends with me?”

M’gann shook her head, one hand coming up to rub at her forehead. “It’s nothing like that, Maggie.”

“If you’re in danger, I need to know. I can help you, protect you.”

“If you knew…look, I appreciate your concern, but that isn’t why Roulette doesn’t trust me. She has her reasons, and they’re reasons that a lot of people would understand, okay?”

“I don’t—”

“Tonight isn’t about me, Maggie. It’s about helping you to get information you need.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll try to find a way to contact him—he goes pretty dark in between matches these days.”

“Thank you. I really do appreciate it.”

“Anytime.” M’gann paused, lingering by Maggie’s side. “How are things…with you?”

“You peeking again?”

And Maggie was teasing, but M’gann’s expression was soft and open and sad as she shook her head. “I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re hurting without having to listen to your thoughts.”

With a soft sight, Maggie felt her shoulders slump. “Jenna broke up with me.”

“Oh, Maggie, I’m sorry.” M’gann held up her arm and waited as Maggie scooted down a few inches and let herself be tucked into M’gann’s side, her head dropping to M’gann’s shoulder.

“I don’t…I’m mad at myself. Because she was right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Alex. The one in my thoughts.” M’gann hummed in understanding. “She said I was in love with her.”

“Are you?”

“I don’t think…I like her. I have a stupid, infuriating crush on a brilliant, infuriating woman. But she’s new to this, you know? And if she likes me it’s because I’m there and out, not because I’m…me.”

“You can’t undervalue yourself like that.”

“It’s true, though. Hell, the first girl I dated when I came out wasn’t the love of my life. She was just gay and open about it, and that was enough for me to overlook the things that didn’t work.”

“And how old were you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“So it doesn’t matter that you were a teenager and this Alex is 30? You don’t think any number of years changes things?”

“You think we’re all immature.”

“Well, yes, but there are varying degrees of immaturity.” A smile tugged at the corners of M’gann’s lips. “Besides, your Alex came out for you.”

“No, it wasn’t—you come out for yourself.”

“But she never thought to until she met you.”

“Then even more reason not to try anything. Because I’ll never be the woman she built me up as in her head. I’ll never meet those high expectations. And then what if…what if she starts to think everything about coming out was a mistake?”

“Oh, Maggie, you can’t assume the worst before you’ve even let yourself try.”

“It’s not assuming the worst when it’s happened every other time! It’s”—Maggie paused, searching for the right words—“a reasonable expectation.”

“Tell me this: I know that you did not like Alex when you met her. Did she like you?”

“God no.”

“If you had to guess, what would you say she thought of you?”

“I don’t know. That I was naïve. Uninformed. Probably incompetent like all the other local cops she thinks she knows. A huge pain in the ass.”

“And what now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does she still think all those things?”

“I don’t—”

“She’s brought you to the heart of her evil empire, no?”

“Yeah, to treat a burn, though.”

“And she gives you information about cases now?”

“That could be because her boss told her she had to share.”

“And you two hang out on weekends and get drinks, which isn’t really something you do with a person you think is a, what was your phrase, ‘huge pain in the ass?’”

“I guess, I don’t know.”

M’gann pulled her arm back slightly so that she could face Maggie. “I’m not so sure about this Alex, and I’m even less sure about her chosen place of employment, but if the only thing holding you back is the idea that she might grow to dislike you, I’d say that she already has. She already has, but she’s also already grown past it. She’s already taken the time to learn that there is so much more to you worth knowing and valuing and trusting.”

With a sniffle, Maggie wiped roughly at her eyes. “You’re pretty good at this stuff.”

“Mm, I’ve been told on Earth it’s what bartenders are meant to do.”

Maggie let out a watery chuckle. “Well, congratulations. ’Cause you’re very successful.”

“Or maybe I just know you well enough to see when a member of the evil empire seems to make you happy and to think that your happiness might be worth the risk.”

“Maybe.”

“Give it time. You don’t have to jump straight out of one relationship and into a new one.”

Maggie flung a hand over her heart. “But it’s the lesbian way!”

With a loud laugh, M’gann pulled herself to her feet. “Maybe give the Martian way a try.”

“What’s that? Wait 300 years for a date? Cause I hate to break it to you, M’gann, but some of us have needs and can’t go 300 years without a bit of relief.”

M’gann rolled her eyes. “And you wonder why I don’t always enjoy having the powers I do around most humans.”

“Love you too.”

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will. And thank you again for your help with the case.”

M’gann nodded. “I’ll let you know when I hear more about Quill.”

\---

After her first restful night’s sleep in several days, Maggie woke before her alarm went off and set about putting on a large pot of coffee to have enough to fill a travel mug. Nothing like avoiding the precinct’s shitty coffee to make her day even better. As she waited for it to brew, she walked over to the large sliding glass doors that led out onto the balcony, spotting Alex standing on her own. She thought Alex looked stunning, the soft, warm light of sunrise bathing her in gold.

Deciding they’d had enough of the silence, Maggie slid open her door and slipped outside, not wanting to disturb the moment. Keeping her voice soft, Maggie said, “Didn’t think anyone else was up this early.”

But apparently there was no such thing as not ruining a moment for the DEO agent. Alex jumped what had to have been a foot into the air, landing with her legs spread and her arms up as her mug of coffee crashed down to the street below. In unison, they moved to the railing and peered over, finding no one clutching their head and threatening a lawsuit—just a large splatter of brown liquid and the shattered remnants of the mug. Maggie glanced back up at Alex, finding the woman looking a bit forlorn at the sight of her missing coffee. And Maggie couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing, one snort growing until she was doubled over in laughter and Alex had joined her.

Eventually Maggie managed to get ahold of herself, wiping away the tears that had escaped from the corners of her eyes during her bout of hysterics. “I really needed that.”

Alex let out a final huff of laughter as she shook her head. “Yeah…yeah, I think I did too.”

“Sorry ’bout the mug.” Maggie peered over the railing again. Definitely beyond repair.

“Eh, I could probably do with fewer mugs.”

“Then I guess I’m more sorry about the coffee in it.”

“Now that’s a real reason to apologize.”

Thinking of the large pot of coffee currently brewing in her kitchen, Maggie smiled and offered Alex a fresh cup, warning, “If you break my mug, though, you owe me a new one.”

“I make no promises.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Maggie muttered, heading back inside. She grabbed the old NCPD sweatshirt out of the closet. If Alex was going to see her nipples for the first time, it didn’t need to be because she was cold and wearing a thin, white t-shirt. She poured two mugs of coffee next, pausing by the sugar and almond milk. She didn’t think she’d noticed Alex using milk, but she stirred in a little sugar to take the edge off in case.

As she stepped back outside, she leaned over the balcony and handed a mug of hot coffee to Alex, feeling her heart melt at the appreciative smile she got in return. She tried not to let her thoughts drift to more mornings like this one—mornings where she could lean across the balcony and let her hand graze Alex’s without worrying, mornings where she could peck Alex’s lips, mornings where they might even be on the same balcony from having woken up curled in each other’s arms.

“I…uh, how are you doing?”

Maggie grimaced, realizing she’d been silent long enough for Alex to notice. Then it hit her: the breakup. The loud breakup. “Guess you heard, huh?”

“I left pretty soon after it started, but…sort of.”

That was considerate, Maggie thought. “Yeah, well…I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do it. I’m the one that’s hard-headed and stubborn and obsessed with work and borderline sociopathic.” The list could go on if Maggie delved deeper than the past two or three breakups for material, but she figured they didn’t need to go that far.

“Hey, that’s not true, Maggie. You have to know none of that’s true.”

“It’s a little true.” Maggie looked down into her coffee, thinking about what Jenna had said, then about what M’gann had said about needing to trust that Alex might not run at the first sign of trouble. “I wasn’t—I could have spent more nights at home with her, called in one of the other detectives to work some of the cases.”

But then there was Alex, insisting that all those things Maggie’s exes had called flaws were good things—passion and care and a devotion to seeing justice done. And it made Maggie want to lean over and pull Alex into a hug and never let her go. And she knew maybe it wasn’t fair to Jenna or to a few of her other exes who had seemed to respect her job and had understood why it mattered to her, but they’d all found other reasons to cut ties or had thrown her hours back at her when she was the one doing the breakup speech.

“It’s what makes you the woman I’ve fa—I’ve gotten to know and come to respect.”

Maggie blinked slowly. She wondered if her mind was supplying the kinds of thing she wanted to hear, but Alex was looking up at her with those big doe eyes, a pink tinge staining her cheeks and her lower lip pulled between her teeth like maybe she worried she’d said too much when all Maggie wanted to do was hear more.

“I could have fought for justice during the daytime hours. But instead I went running every time I heard there was something that might,  _maybe_ , be related to Cadmus,” Maggie hedged, needing Alex to know that those faults weren’t little things—they were real, tangible parts of her life, just like the other thing about her was. But nothing in Alex’s expression shifted; there was no suggestion that long nights spent away fazed her in the slightest; instead she nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Maggie’s gaze dropped to the balcony as she forced herself to take in a deep breath. “I went running every time— every time I thought you might be there.”

Maggie forced herself to look up, watching as Alex froze, then stumbled forward towards the railing.

“Don’t drop my mug,” she teased, letting the joking tone break the tension that seemed to crackle between them.

“I’m not.”

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

“I—I think it does.”

Maggie ignored the weight of Alex’s gaze. “It doesn’t.” She waited, figuring Alex was on the verge of pressing her on the issue, but then she turned back to her mug and sipped at it. “I should go. Get into the office. Last night I got a”—Maggie hesitated, but she thought maybe Alex didn’t need to know the full extent of everything with M’gann and her involvement—“call from M’gann about a possible in with one of the newest recruits to the fight club.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I don’t wanna get my hopes up, but so far the guy hasn’t wanted to take the drugs.” She’d been fighting that impulse all night. She continued, hedging all of her claims in the possibility of their failure, never wanting to mislead Alex.

“You’re a great detective, and if anyone could bring Roulette down, it would be you.”

Maggie could feel her cheeks warming under Alex’s kind words. “I’m not—you shouldn’t be so sure. I might not be enough to convince him to turn against her or be willing to testify on something that big. It could be nothing.”

“Maggie? Maggie, look at me.” Maggie forced her eyes up to hold Alex’s gaze. “You want proof of how persuasive you are?” Maggie shrugged. “Guess who’s out as part of the DEO’s newest parole policy?”

Brow furrowing, Maggie tried to piece together all the parts of that sentence. There was so much to digest. “Who?”

“Scorcher. As of yesterday.”

“Wait. What?”

Maggie felt something clicking into place as Alex talked about having listened to Maggie—more importantly, having listened to Scorcher. She could feel her gaze softening as Alex explained the way she’d taken Scorcher’s fears seriously, even as the knowledge that men, likely working with Roulette, had come for Scorcher settled like a heavy weight sitting low in her gut.

“They had lists of aliens—addresses, species, abilities. The ones with notes by their names all seemed to be the ones with powers that might, uh, make for good fights. Something that people would pay money to see.”

“Shit.” Maggie tried to think of the other species that might be good in the ring. Would Roulette go for brute strength or flashy powers? What about flashy powers that had no good uses in the ring? Would they be cause for concern?

“I don’t think they’ve got much in the way of information—probably some low-level lackeys or hired muscle, if anything—but, I don’t know, maybe it’s something.”

Forcing herself out of her thoughts, Maggie smiled at Alex. “That’s great. Seriously.”

“I—I was planning on telling you. It’s just that we only yesterday confirmed some of the details, and then I wasn’t sure if it would pan out, and—”

“I trust you.” And for the first time since they’d met, Maggie felt like she could say those words with no hesitation. It wasn’t a contingent kind of trust—I trust you to be nice to me because I’m human, or I trust you when we’re not at work, or I trust you not to do something awful for the DEO while I’m right here. No, it was simple and all-encompassing, and those truths hit Maggie hard. Because she did trust Alex. She trusted her in a way she trusted so few other people in her life. And that kind of scared the shit out of her. “I really should get ready for work. Maybe we could meet up later today? Go over some of these case details?”

“Sounds good.”

“Mind if we meet at the DEO. I’m still not sure about security at my office.”

“Of course. Just text when you’re on your way.”

Maggie nodded and shot Alex a small smile before turning to head back inside. Before she could get a full foot through the doorway, a yelped, “Wait!” caused her to pause. When she turned back around, Alex’s cheeks were a bright shade of pink. “Sorry, I just, um, I have your mug still.”

Maggie bit her cheek to keep from laughing at the shitty excuse. “Ah yes, couldn’t let you go off with my Gotham Pride mug.”

“No, definitely not. Very important mug right here.”

Maggie didn’t really care that she was ten minutes late for work—not when she got to spend an extra ten minutes out on the balcony with Alex pointing out all the buildings they could see from their somewhat low vantage point. Alex got in a story or two about rogue alien attacks at a couple of the intersections, and Maggie finally filled Alex in on the location of the gayborhood, gesturing in the vague direction of Nine Ball’s even though she knew it couldn’t be seen through the skyscrapers of the business district. Eventually, coffee mugs drained of their contents, they both admitted that they really should get ready to go.

No one said anything to Maggie when she arrived late. She wondered if it would always have been quite so easy to enjoy a quiet morning in but she’d simply never tried.

\---

Twenty long minutes of arguing with security and flashing her badge and dialing Alex’s number to no avail later, Maggie got a personal escort in the form of J’onn J’onzz, Director of the DEO and the only other Green Martian left. He was nicer than she thought he would be, even if his demeanor was a bit gruff. Then again, M’gann hadn’t been overly forthcoming at first either. Maggie thought it made sense that no one survived the extermination of their race without emerging wary and guarded on the other side. But he got her from security and vouched for her and told her she’d been doing good work with the NCPD, though Maggie didn’t have the faintest clue how he would know any of that considering they’d never met, but he was able to cite specifics, so maybe the meetings with Captain Owens had been going better than she realized.

They didn’t go the same way Alex had taken Maggie when she’d treated her burn, turning instead down a long, curling hallway, then a stairwell, before finally arriving at a massive lab with equipment that Maggie suspected would make all the MIT scientists salivate.

“Alex!” J’onn called out, “you have a visitor.” Maggie watched as Alex looked up from her microscope, glancing between J’onn and Maggie as her expression morphed from one of general annoyance to shock to remorse in milliseconds.

“Shit, Maggie!”

“What a greeting, Danvers,” Maggie drawled, noting J’onn’s departure out of the corner of her eye. But Maggie waved off all of Alex’s apologies about losing track of time. She’d have stopped Alex earlier, but she looked sort of adorable with the rambling and the wild hand gestures and the faint pink blush to her cheeks. “You know you’re talking to the woman who just got dumped for being obsessed with work, right?” Maggie didn’t feel the need to add that it was less about work and more about a specific person at work. “I think I understand getting swept up in a case.”

“Yeah…I guess. Suppose that’s why we work well together.”

Maggie hummed, trying to drive away all the thoughts of other places where they might work well together. Instead she looked over Alex’s notes and listened as Alex walked her through what she’d found thus far. She tried to focus, tried not to let herself be distracted by the way some of the hardness to Alex’s features fell away as she talked about the science behind the compound. Maggie could almost picture her in school, lighting up on lab days and getting to shine during the yearly science fair. She tuned back into the conversation in time to hear Alex talking about uncontaminated samples. Brian’s friend’s words about all the fighters getting one free sample rang in her mind. She wondered if M’gann had kept hers, instead of throwing it away or destroying it to keep it out of someone else’s hands. “Would it help if you got a sample of the drug itself, before it’s interacted with blood?”

Alex’s eyebrows arched. “Uh, yeah, very much so. You gonna make my day and tell me you have some?”

“No…but I might know where we could get it.” She hoped M’gann wouldn’t mind, since she’d already admitted to Alex that she had been roped into the fight club without taking the drug. “How do you feel about a field trip?”

Within a few minutes, they were outside in the fresh air once more, and Maggie had her leg thrown over her motorcycle. “Grab your bike and follow me to the alien bar, okay?”

“I, um, sure?”

Maggie felt herself tense. She really thought they’d been making progress on the alien front. Then again, maybe it was Darla. She could be a bit intimidating. Didn’t really seem intimidating enough to scare off Alex, but perhaps… “What’s wrong?”

Alex’s answer was so much simpler. No bike. That was all. No resurgence of anti-alien prejudice or fear of ex-girlfriends. Simple logistics. And those could be solved easily. They could call a cab, but, Maggie reasoned, she didn’t really want to draw attention to the alien bar. And that seemed perfectly legitimate—a very good reason to have Alex cling to her for the whole ride to the bar. It had nothing to do with how often Maggie had thought about their night playing pool together or the simmer of attraction and desire pooling low in her abdomen.

The ride itself was easy enough. Alex knew how to handle herself—even when she wasn’t the one driving—and Maggie had once spent four months studying abroad in Spain with a host family whose daughter was very affectionate and very Catholic and very straight, so she knew how to ignore her own arousal.

When they arrived at the bar, it took a few beats for Alex to loosen her arms and let Maggie up and off the bike. She couldn’t resist the temptation to lean over, helmet tucked under her arm, and ask: “So, how was I?”

Some vague noise sounded from underneath the helmet.

“Does my driving pass muster?”

Alex pulled off her helmet, shaking out her hair and looking unfairly attractive. “Oh! Uh, yeah, you're great—great driving, I mean.”

Maggie forced herself to turn around before Alex could see the grin tugging up the corners of her mouth. One password later, and they were inside. It was quiet—as she expected for that time of day on a Tuesday—and Maggie found one of the newer bartenders up front. “Is M’gann here?”

“Uh, yeah, she’s in the back doing dishes.” He glanced between Maggie and Alex, his expression guarded.

“I really need to speak to her. Can you tell her that Maggie’s here?”

He nodded, coming back a minute later with M’gann in tow.

“Maggie? What’s wrong?”

“Can we talk?” Maggie gestured to the booths, watching as M’gann glanced over at Alex before nodding. The minute they were seated, M’gann turned back to Alex, then Maggie once more. “You trust her?”

Maggie heard everything that wasn’t said in the question. Because they both knew Maggie liked her. They knew that Alex was doing better. But trust…it didn’t come easily to either of them.

“She’s the reason Scorcher’s out now and safe from the men that came for her,” Maggie answered, her expression resolute as she inclined her head slightly.

“Maggie!” Alex’s voice was a whisper, but Maggie could hear the exasperation in it. “Certain things aren’t exactly public information.”

Ignoring the smirk on M’gann’s face that told her she’d already skimmed along the surface of Alex’s thoughts to verify what she needed to know, Maggie let out a soft laugh. “Trust me, she already knows more than you’d ever believe.” She thought as hard as she could: _And more than she needs to know when she feels the need to snoop_. M’gann gave Maggie a small shrug of her shoulders.

“What is it you need, Maggie?”

“Right. The steroids?” M’gann’s features hardened, and Maggie added, “I know you didn’t take them, but did you…did you keep them?”

“Why? Am I going to be arrested and never heard from again?”

Maggie’s heart thundered in her chest as Alex tensed and leaned forward, meeting M’gann head on. Nothing she said slowed either of them down, Alex barreling right over her attempts at cutting in and M’gann silencing her with a hand held aloft. But Maggie wanted to translate between them because they were speaking in the same language but with such different inflections, both of them fighting in the small ways they could, and all Maggie wanted was for them to be able to see and recognize that and help each other so that things could keep getting better instead of clashing while the Roulettes and Cadmuses of the world used their infighting to take over. But, after a long, tense silence, M’gann reached a hand out to Alex, and Maggie felt some of the tension fall out of her shoulders, her muscles relaxing and her jaw unclenching.

Eventually, with a few logistics worked out, M’gann offered to get them the vial of the steroid after her shift ended, and she left with a solemn nod in Maggie’s direction.

“I don’t think your friend likes me,” Alex mumbled, her fingers twisting together.

Maggie was tempted to point out that Alex had no idea what M’gann not liking someone looked like. That was distrust, a kind of contingent compromise. Dislike would have found Alex out on her ass. She settled on sincere instead. “If she gets to see even a little bit of the person I’ve seen you be recently, I think she’ll come around.”

“You getting soft on me?”

“You’re the one that let a hardened arsonist walk,” Maggie teased, smiling at the sound of Alex’s laugh. “Now how about a drink?”

Maggie insisted on treating to the first round and ignored the little voice in her head screaming that paying after inviting Alex out felt a little bit like a date. As did the easy conversation and the half-flirty banter and the round of pool and darts. With her third or fourth glass of scotch on an empty stomach, Maggie felt herself loosening, like her legs maybe didn’t cooperate entirely but also like her thoughts were a little jumbled, and she was rapidly losing sight of her litany of reasons for why it would be a really terrible idea to ask Alex out or kiss her or drag her to the bathroom and drop to her knees and try to find out what those moans and whimpers sounded like in person.

Around that time, a plate of fries, a basket of chicken fingers, and a veggie burger showed up at their table, and M’gann yanked Maggie to the side, hissing: “I’m not even trying to listen, but I can tell you right now it’s a bad idea.”

Feeling like a chastised child, Maggie slunk back to the booth, throwing herself down on her side with an indignant huff.

“Wha’s wrong?” Alex asked through a mouthful of chicken.

“Nothing. Just…breakup-related shit.” It was close enough to the truth.

“She’s gotta be an idiot.”

“Who?” Maggie blinked slowly, trying to piece things together that she suspected would have made perfect sense before the drinks.

“Jessa.”

“Jenna,” Maggie corrected.

“Whatever.” Maggie bit her cheek to keep from smiling at the bitterness in Alex’s tone. “Seriously, she’s stupid. No one in their right mind ends things with you.”

Maggie felt her cheeks warm. “Yeah, well, you heard her,” Maggie mumbled into her burger. “She did a pretty convincing job.”

“She didn’t know what she had—that’s all. ’S not your fault.”

“Not like I bring anything special to the table.” Maggie’s heart sank a little. She hadn’t planned on getting sad drunk tonight, but apparently the universe had other plans for her.

Then again, the universe had never met Alex Danvers.

The feeling of Alex’s hand, soft and warm, landing on her own sent a jolt of warmth through Maggie. She listened as Alex spun every bad thing Jenna and Darla and Emily and all her other exes had ever said about her into positives—into intelligence and passion and perseverance. And that was enough to have Maggie smiling a little, the veil of sadness lifting, but Alex kept going.

“You’re passionate and so, so beautiful, Maggie.” Maggie felt her cheeks flush and wondered if Alex could tell. “And you’re generous with your time and energy, and you’re so compassionate. Plus, you make things fun—like, even things that shouldn’t be fun are fun with you—so your dates must be super fun too, and, um”—Maggie looked up at Alex as she fumbled over her words, her own cheeks stained a deep shade of red—“you know, uh, through the wall, you sounded like…like that was…I mean you didn’t appear to be deficient there either.”

Maggie felt her thighs clench as her whole body seemed to surge forward, just barely held back by annoying practical matters like the heavy wooden table and all the food and glasses spread out in between them. But she didn’t have any practical concerns loud enough to be heard over the booze and cockiness and want when it came to smirking at Alex and asking, “Hear something you like, Danvers?” Of course, the moment the words left her lips, all those practical concerns came roaring back to life. “Shit, sorry. No, I—I crossed a line there. Just…please ignore me. I’m sleep-deprived and running on all caffeine and scotch.”

“You’re fine.” But Alex was leaning forward, her eyes darkened and her lips slightly parted. And Maggie knew that expression. And, sure, fine, it wasn’t exactly the way she thought it should happen, but dammit, it wasn’t the worst way it could happen either.

A hard grip around her shoulder halted Maggie’s progress, and she looked up to find M’gann glaring at her, giving her a nearly imperceptible shake of her head. Her voice was loud when she spoke. “I’m done for the night. You want to follow me back to my place?”

Maggie sprang up from the table, staggering into M’gann as gravity reasserted its presence and left her reeling. “Oh…I—I shouldn’t drive.”

M’gann shook her head and pursed her lips. “I’m close enough to walk.” Right. Maggie knew that. Somewhere in the back of her head. “Then we can call you both cabs.”

“We can take the same one, ’s fine,” Alex chimed in as she pulled herself up from the booth.

M’gann’s head snapped around as she looked at Maggie, mouthing, “Really?”

Oh, this wasn’t how she wanted to have this conversation. This wasn’t where she wanted to have this conversation. This most definitely was not the company or the level of intoxication with which she wanted to have this conversation. “We’re, uh, next-door neighbors, actually.” She rubbed her hand along the back of her neck, feeling a thin sheen of sweat break out along her forehead.

“Wait.” Maggie cringed at the teasing smile on M’gann’s lips, and she prayed she wouldn’t say anything more. “Next-door neighbor as in smoke alarms and notes and chainsaw-sounding—”

“That’s enough!” Maggie yelped. So much for that prayer. “We, um, we’ve moved past that.”

“Mm, bet you have.” M’gann’s tone was knowing, and she clapped a hand against Maggie’s back hard enough to make her stumble forward. Even though M’gann let herself be guided to the door, Maggie knew better than to think that was the end of the conversation or the teasing. But at least Alex didn’t need to be there for it.

One short trip and a dizzying cab ride later, Alex and Maggie staggered up the stairs, pausing for a few moments around the second floor to catch their breath before forcing themselves the rest of the way up. Maggie didn’t let herself do anything more than mutter out a “goodnight” before unlocking her own door and doing up the chain lock behind her. No need for temptations she wasn’t quite sure she could resist that late at night.

\---

Maggie woke up the next morning with a pounding headache, a churning low in her gut, and two texts from M’gann:

“Talked to someone about the friend I mentioned might be able to help you. He’s up north in a cabin, and he’ll talk if don’t bring your work friends with you.”

“Hope you didn’t do anything you regret this morning.”

Grumbling, Maggie dragged herself out of bed and into the kitchen for a glass of water and to turn on the coffee machine, then straight to the bathroom for painkillers and a much-needed shower. By the time she got out and dressed in jeans and a soft sweatshirt, she felt more human. She wondered how Alex was doing… Poking her head into the kitchen, Maggie decided there was more than enough coffee to share and poured two mugs.

Her decision made, Maggie headed back into the bedroom and rapped her knuckles against the wall until she heard a thump that suggested Alex was out of bed—whether on her feet or her ass, Maggie couldn’t be sure. “Balcony?” Maggie yelled, before heading outside herself.

A few moments later, Alex emerged, her hair tousled and her eyes still half-shut against the onslaught of the offending sun.

“How ya feeling?” Maggie didn’t think she really needed to ask, but it seemed polite to act like she couldn’t spot all the signs of a hangover. She leaned over the railing, watching as Alex’s eyes lit up slightly at the sight of coffee.

“This should help.”

Maggie bit back a smile at the gravelly quality to Alex’s voice. “Figured you could use it. They’ve got a, uh, pretty generous pour there.”

“You can say that again.”

“Anyway, M’gann texted me overnight.”

“Yeah?”

From there, Maggie launched into the details she’d gotten from M’gann after a few early morning texts, during which time she adroitly navigated around any and all questions about Alex. Eventually she made it to the one sticking point: “He’s living out in the woods in the middle of nowhere at the moment.”

“Okay…” Alex trailed off, her eyebrows scrunching together.

And Maggie knew maybe it was a terrible idea, but she couldn’t help herself as she looked over at Alex. “So what do you say to that camping trip?”


	10. Chapter 10

**M’gann:** How’s the hangover?

 **Maggie:** Fine. Coffee is a miracle.

 **M’gann:** What do you say to lunch? My treat.

 **Maggie:** I feel like this is a set up…

 **M’gann:** I would never. I simply want to have lunch with my good friend. Catch up. Find out how her life is going. Ask about her neighbor. Talk about the news.

 **Maggie:** Mhm that’s what I thought

 **M’gann:** I could delve in and get the information myself, but that sounds messy.

 **Maggie:** Fine, fine. Meet me outside the precinct at 12:30.

Several hours later, Maggie found M’gann waiting for her by the bus stop on the corner of the block.

“Where are we going?” Maggie asked.

“Figured you’d want something greasy, so we can do pizza.”

“You’re just trying to get me talking.”

M’gann chuckled. “Last night your thoughts were screaming. And highly inappropriate things, I might add.”

Maggie felt a warm flush creeping up her chest, and she cleared her throat a few times before she could manage to get words out. “Right, um, yes. So. That’s the thing. Yeah. Alex is my neighbor.”

“I gathered.”

“But also, she’s been pretty great recently.”

M’gann let out a hum of acknowledgement.

“She’s really coming around on how she thinks about aliens and alien rights. Did I tell you that she was the one who proposed testing all aliens for the steroid before charging them with anything in case they weren’t in control of themselves?”

“You did not.”

“And she got the, you know, to implement that new policy for a kind of contingent release policy.”

“So you two said last night.”

“She really wants to help bring Roulette down.”

“Maggie,” M’gann sighed, stepping off to the side to move out of the path of people as she turned to Maggie. “If you’ve seen change, I trust your judgment. You don’t exactly let people in easily, and for how far your opinion on her has come…it has to mean something.”

Maggie swallowed heavily and nodded her head up and down.

“I’m not here to warn you off from anything.”

“Then what are we doing?”

“I’m here because you’re my friend.”

“Oh. Right, yeah, of course.”

“And what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t give you a hard time about the fact that you’re head over heels for the two women you hated for such different reasons who turned out to be the same woman. The same woman who has listened to you have ‘you know,’ and who you’ve heard—”

“I get it!” Maggie yelled, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment. She started walking again to keep from having to make eye contact. “I know, I know. But maybe…maybe I didn’t give Alex enough of a chance. Either time.”

“Or maybe you’re realizing there are certain other things you’d like to give her, and they win out over all the annoyances?”

Maggie pursed her lips at the sight of M’gann barely holding back a full-blown grin. “Whatever. Have your fun at your dear friend’s expense.”

“I gave you two free dinner last night. And kept you from doing something you’d regret.”

“I thought you just said—”

“You would have regretted it if that was the way it happened.”

Dipping her head in acknowledgement, Maggie muttered, “Yeah…you’re right.”

“Wisdom built up over centuries.” M’gann nudged Maggie to turn at a cross street where she’d found a new pizza place she quite liked.

“What ever would I do without you?”

“Make more bad decisions when it comes to women than you already do?”

Maggie simply rolled her eyes and ignored the suggestion. “So this weekend we’re gonna go up to see our new friend.”

“We?”

“Uh, you know, it seemed like a bad idea to go without backup, and she’ll just becoming as a scientist, not as someone in law enforcement.”

“Mhm.”

“It’s true!”

“Because you know no one else you could have taken with you.”

“No one as well-versed in the case.”

“That’s the reason you invited her?”

“M’gann,” Maggie whined.

“Yes, Maggie?”

“We’re just friends.”

“Friends who nearly defiled the alley behind my bar.”

“I wouldn’t have chosen the alley,” Maggie teased, sticking her tongue out.

“I never said that particular thought was yours.”

Maggie stood, mouth gaping, watching as M’gann turned off the sidewalk to head into the pizza place. A thousand thoughts clashed and jostled in Maggie’s mind as she grappled with the implications of M’gann’s words. Alex had been thinking about her. Alex had been fantasizing about her. Alex had been fantasizing about her last night. Alex had been fantasizing about having sex with her in the alley behind the alien bar last night.

“Are you coming in or not?” M’gann called from the doorway.

“Right, yeah, on my way.”

\---

After a full day of no updates at all from Alex, Maggie made an executive decision to get her dinner, figuring she likely hadn’t stopped working at all during the day. She jogged down to the park to the empanada truck she’d seen Alex at months ago, managing to catch them before they headed down to park by the bars for the rest of the night.

It wasn’t until she got to the DEO that she realized she probably needed to get in touch with Alex if she wanted any chance of getting through security. But, with J’onn’s approval from the other day hopefully still on the record, Maggie figured she’d give it a try.

“Hi, it’s Detective Maggie Sawyer from NCPD’s Science Division again. I’m here to see Agent Alex Danvers.”

“And what is it you need with her?”

Maggie looked up to find Supergirl towering over her, arms folded across her chest and eyes narrowed.

“Uh…” Maggie held up the bag of empanadas. “I brought her dinner.”

“Did she ask you to bring her dinner?”

“I don’t, um, no…but I figured she might be hungry after a long day in the lab.”

“And will your presence be welcome? Are you going to be nice to her this time?”

“I—it should be. And yeah…”

“I suppose I’ll take you down.” Supergirl turned to the guards. “I’ll watch her and make sure she’s removed from the premises if her presence was not requested.”

Maggie trailed beside Supergirl, feeling the weight of a gaze that could fry her alive on her at all times. She decided not to bother trying with small talk. It didn’t feel right.

After a walk that felt interminably long, they arrived at Alex’s lab, and Supergirl knocked, inserting herself in between Maggie and Alex the moment Alex opened the door. She let out a huff of annoyance as Supergirl announced her presence and strode past Maggie, cutting her off before she could get close to Alex. It seemed implausible that they were dating after what M’gann said, but then again…she’d certainly been having those thoughts while she was dating Jenna. And oh god, she really didn’t want to find out what it was like to be the woman that stole Supergirl’s girlfriend—not when she was already acting this jealous over a couple empanadas.

“What’s, uh, what’s up? Why are you two…together…in my lab?” Alex asked.

Maggie narrowed her eyes at Alex’s clear anxiety. Was she trying to keep Supergirl a secret? Was she trying to keep Maggie a secret? Was this baby lesbian trying to get two women at once on her very first go out of the closet? Maggie cleared her throat and shook her head. “I came by to see how you were, bring you some dinner. Figured with all the work you might have forgotten to eat.”

“I already brought her lunch,” Supergirl huffed, glaring at Maggie again. Okay, yeah, that right there was some next level jealous girlfriend shit. “You should probably go run along back to your girlfriend now. We can handle it from here.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes, and was on the verge of pointing out that maybe Supergirl should let her girlfriend make her own goddam decisions when Alex jumped in between them. “Sorry, uh, Supergirl here has been giving me a hand after stopping a bank robbery, so she’s just a little tired. Isn’t that right, Supergirl?”

“I…could be.” Maggie bit back a snicker at the sight of a much-subdued Supergirl fidgeting with her cape. “Is…what we talked about earlier, did that help at all?”

“Sort of.” Maggie followed Alex’s gesture over to the lab benches where petri dishes and microscope slides were lined up at equal distances away from each other.

“What’s this one?” Maggie pointed at one of the slides, which was dyed a bright purple color.

“It’s literally just the drug, pure and simple.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes. She’d handled the vial the night before, and it was most definitely clear. “Did you dye it a different color?”

“No, no. It changes color when it’s exposed to air.”

“I’ve seen that shade of purple before, I know it.” Maggie glared at the slide, as if willing the liquid to give her the answers.

She barely even noticed Supergirl and Alex making their way across the room until Supergirl was knocking into Alex in her excitement. “The LuthorCorp logo!”

Maggie whistled softly. “Shit, yeah.” In an instant, she had her phone out with the old logo displayed on her screen. There it was. That exact shade of purple.

“Well, fuck.”

After nearly a full minute of silence, Maggie snorted. “Nothing’s ever as simple as it seems with you guys, is it?”

Alex groaned. “It doesn’t help that we’ve got three Luthors to go track down.”

“Alex, I told you, Lena’s doing things a new way.”

“It doesn’t make her not a suspect.”

“She helped us just a few weeks ago on a case.”

“Could have been a way to keep us distracted, unsuspicious.”

“Alex.”

“Uh, Supergirl.”

“Let me talk to her.”

“Because you’re so good at believing anything but the best in people.”

“At least let me try?”

“Fine.”

Maggie watched them intently, trying to name whatever it was between the two. There was so much familiarity there in the way they anticipated each other’s arguments and seemed to know the cadences of their speaking styles well enough to cut in the moment the other was ending a sentence. And there was some sort of tension. Maybe sexual, but that didn’t feel quite right either. But it certainly didn’t feel like they were just friends either. It sort of felt like she was intruding on an old married couple, but if Alex had just come out…maybe Supergirl thought they were dating for a long time before Alex ever realized it. And now they were actually dating. But they still had the old dynamic. Maybe things were different on Krypton, and there were long courting rituals.

She was fairly certain she missed a few things, but then Supergirl was leaving with a swoosh of her cape, casting one last annoyed glance at Maggie on her way out the door. And Maggie knew maybe she shouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t keep it in any longer. “You two…you a, uh, a thing?”

“A what?” Alex tilted her head slightly, a furrow creasing her brow.

“I mean, she is sort of a lesbian icon.” Maggie swallowed heavily as she tried to muster the enthusiasm to be proud of Alex for finding someone already. “And I guess…good on you. Right off the bat and all.”

“No!” Alex waved her hands in front of her face and ignored the crash Maggie could hear from the hallway. “No, we, uh, we’re just friends.”

“Do all your friends plan on cornering me to tell me to be nice to you?” Maggie grumbled, still annoyed by the superhero’s treatment of her in the lobby.

Alex nearly yelled her response. “Well hopefully Supergirl knows now not to do that again!”

Maggie cringed, ducking her head down. “She, uh…she’s listening, isn’t she?”

“Probably.” Alex tilted her head from side to side. “Likely not any longer.”

“Weird relationship you two have.” But Alex didn’t address it at all, completely switching the subject back to the Luthors, suggesting that Maggie look into Lex and getting into details about Lillian’s suspected involvement with Cadmus and some of the financial documents they’d recovered from the match. Maggie was glad something they’d found there seemed to be panning out, as the addresses hadn’t done much. NCPD stationed officers to surveil the areas, but so far they hadn’t turned up anything.

Eventually they made it to the cooling empanadas, settling in at the back table to eat and discuss their trip to go meet Quill.

“I thought maybe we could drive up Friday after work, then try to meet with him on Saturday. I got off both days this weekend just in case—figure it’s good to be free on Sunday too depending on how cooperative he is.” Maggie wondered if Supergirl would find a reason to come with them, maybe call Maggie out on her bluff and point out that the trip probably didn’t need to be overnight, let alone two overnights. But maybe it would. M’gann _did_ say he was skittish. It could take him some time to warm up to them, and it would be better to have the extra time if they needed it. Or wanted it. Because really so many things could happen removed from all the stress and ex-girlfriends and weird memories of their apartments and National City.

“Works for me.” Maggie blinked slowly, forcing herself to listen to Alex. “And the DEO has some pretty fancy camping gear we can take with us.”

“You mean a lowly cop like me is going to get your fancy ass fed gear?”

“You have to promise not to eat any donuts in it.”

Pursing her lips, Maggie arched an eyebrow at Alex. “Oh come on, Danvers, you can do better than that.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.” Maggie bit her tongue the moment she said it, but the way Alex’s gaze darted down to her lips inspired a small burst of confidence.

“Whatever. You better not snore.”

“I think you’d know by now if I snored.”

“I—fine.”

Not wanting to dwell on the awkwardness of all that they’d heard through the walls, Maggie cleared her throat. “So, uh, should we pack a telescope?”

“What?”

“I just…you said that your family always took one to go stargazing. I though, I don’t know, ignore me. It was stupid.”

“No…no, it’s really sweet.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We should definitely bring a telescope. I can—I could show you all my favorite constellations. If you want, I mean.”

Maggie thought the camping trip was sounding more and more like a date with every addition to the plan. “I’d love that.”

\---

On Thursday morning, Maggie opted not to knock on the wall. Instead, she brewed enough coffee to have some for Alex if she happened to show, then went out to her own balcony, which was totally a thing she could have done on her own with no other incentives even though it was a little brisk in the early morning hours.

But a few minutes later, Alex emerged, and the broad smile she sent in Maggie’s direction chased away any lingering chill in the air.

“Morning.”

“Sleep well?” Maggie asked, feeling suddenly shy as she handed over the second mug.

“Uh, sort of. Worried about the case, you know?”

“I get that. But seriously, Alex, you’re making a lot of progress, and now we’ve got some leads about where it might be coming from—that’s all really, really significant.”

“Maybe. Once I get somewhere with the antidote.”

“No, Alex, right now—right now what you have already done and accomplished is already progress.”

“I wouldn’t be anywhere if it weren’t for you, though.”

“You admitting us local cops are good for something?”

Alex shrugged. “I don’t know about all local cops…but you certainly are.”

They sank into a companionable silence as they sipped at their coffees and watched the sun rise higher in the sky.

Alex let out a sigh earlier than usual. “I really should get to the DEO.”

“Okay. Try to remember to eat today, yeah?”

“I will, don’t worry. If you don’t bug me Kara will.”

Maggie snorted. “Would you even admit to her that you hadn’t taken a break?”

“Oh, uh, I guess…sister’s honor.” It was followed by a hollow laugh that left Maggie feeling fairly certain Alex wouldn’t be taking any breaks at all that day. Not that she really had room to judge, considering she ended up eating a grain bowl at her desk as she sat on hold with guards at Stryker’s trying to ensure that Lex was still serving out his 37 consecutive life sentences and to get a list of any and all visitors to the prison and the roster of inmates who had come and gone recently.

\---

On Friday morning, Maggie woke to a soft but insistent rapping against their shared wall. She gave a knock back, then ventured out onto the balcony. “You okay?” Maggie asked, her words still thick with sleep and her voice raspy.

“Sorry, I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d see if you were awake.”

“I am now, Danvers,” Maggie chuckled.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—I didn’t—it’s early. You can go back to sleep. Sorry.”

“Alex, seriously.” Maggie rubbed at her eyes and shook away the last remnants of sleep. “I’m up. I’m here for you. It’s not a problem at all.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“No, I don’t,” Maggie conceded, “but I want to be.”

“I, um, I know it’s not coffee, but I’ve got some sticky buns from Noonan’s here if you want.”

“The ones that are, like, the size of my face?”

“The very ones.”

“And you have more than one?”

With a snort of laughter, Alex nodded. “My sister has a, uh, fast metabolism and a love of sugary treats.”

“Well, sure, bring it on.”

A moment later, Alex came back out with one cinnamon bun split onto two plates. “If you want more, you’re welcome to it, but I can’t do more than half on a good day. Hell, I don’t normally eat sugar this early at all, let alone this much of it.”

“So you weren’t a Poptart kid, then?”

“Maybe as a little kid, but definitely not for long.”

Maggie nodded slowly, pulling off a small bite of the pastry and popping it into her mouth. “Want to tell me what was keeping you up?”

“It’s, um, it’s my mom.”

“Oh?”

“She’s on her way into National City—should be here soon, actually—to help me in the lab.”

“She knows what you do?”

“That’s a…recent development, but yes.”

“And she can help?”

“Hopefully. She studies alien biology and has research that might even be more advanced than the DEO’s, at least in certain regards.”

“Wow. Impressive family you’ve got there, Danvers. But that’s great if she can help.”

“I guess.”

Maggie tilted her head to the side as she watched Alex’s gaze fall, her lips twist, her toes nudge across the concrete. “Or not?”

“No, no, it’s good for the DEO and for the case.”

“But…?”

“We just…I never feel like I’m enough for her. And now here I am, admitting that I can’t do this on my own.”

“There’s nothing shameful about asking for help.”

“I know. It’s not the asking so much as it is that I _have to_ ask her. Like I could never get out from her shadow or my dad’s or my sister’s, and even in my own job I’m just…floundering.”

“Alex, I don’t think anyone could ever use that word about you. You are”—Maggie paused, searching for the right word—“extraordinary.”

“That’s nice but not true.”

“It’s definitely true.” Maggie’s lips curled up into a smile. “At first you were an extraordinary pain in the ass.” Alex let out a snort of laughter. “But then you showed me how extraordinarily kind you could be when you patched my arm up and how extraordinarily brilliant you were when you figured out that aliens were being drugged before anyone else had even thought to check, and now you’re being extraordinarily thoughtful in trying to interrogate your own thinking and bring in outside perspectives when you need them.”

Alex’s cheeks were tinged a faint pink as she mumbled out a “thank you” that Maggie barely caught. “I wish I had more progress before she got here—that’s all.”

“Well, what if I came over to the DEO with you, and you show me what you’ve got before she gets in? I bet it’s more than you’re giving yourself credit for.”

“You’d do that?”

 _For you? Always_ , Maggie thought, forcing herself to bite the inside of her cheek to keep things like that in her head. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

“Thanks. I should—let me get dressed. Meet you in the hallway in 15?”

“Sounds good.”

Soon enough, Maggie found herself standing beside Alex in the lab, listening as she talked about the difficulty she was having in finding a middle ground between getting the antidote to kill everything, even the healthy cells, or do nothing at all. But it was definitely more than they had earlier, and apparently Supergirl had procured documents from Lena Luthor that helped point a finger in Lillian’s general direction via a former L-Corp employee or two. Maggie, in turn, filled Alex in on everything she had heard from Stryker’s—nothing particularly notable. Lex was still in solitary, and no one Maggie could tie to Roulette or Lillian had come in or out of the prison over the past six months.

“Even if it’s eliminating suspects, that’s still progress,” Maggie said, knocking her shoulder into Alex’s.

“I guess. It’d be nice if we had something a little more tangible.”

“Like a working antidote?”

Alex’s lips twitched to one side. “Maybe.”

“Seriously, you’re doing amazing things. If anyone could make this work, it’s you.”

“But it’s just…we’re supposed to be leaving for the camping trip tonight, and what if I’m not done? Isn’t it irresponsible to leave all this behind?”

“We’re going for work—it’s part of the case too.”

“Right!” Alex’s voice cracked on the word, and her cheeks flushed a light shade of pink. “Yeah, of course, just business and all. Right.”

“I mean…I’m not opposed to doing something fun while we’re there.”

“Really?” Alex’s voice was exceptionally high-pitched, and she knocked a pen off the table as she scrambled for something to do with her hands.

Shaking her head, Maggie tried to rid herself of all the inappropriate thoughts currently racing through her mind. Alex didn’t deserve that—not when the weekend was supposed to be about work. “I, um, yeah. I’ve been told I make a mean s’more.”

“Oh. Yeah, right. Right. That’s cool.”

“Tell me: were you the impatient kid that put your marshmallow all the way into the fire to try to make it cook faster and inevitably ended up with a totally charred blob?”

“Excuse me, that would be my sister, thank you very much. Not that there’s anything wrong with a slightly crispy exterior. It gives my s’mores texture.”

Maggie let out a snort of laughter. “Knew it.”

“Oh shut up.” Alex bumped her arm against Maggie’s, laughing when Maggie lost her balance only to come crashing back into Alex as she overcorrected. “Let me guess: you were the one slowly spinning a single marshmallow for ten minutes until it was light brown the whole way around?”

“Nothing wrong with precision.”

“In the lab, maybe.”

“This is why I had to listen to your fire alarm so often, wasn’t it?”

“I plead the fifth.”

Before Maggie could respond, Alex startled, jumping and staggering back to the other end of the table. Peering over her shoulder, Maggie found Supergirl with an older blonde woman she’d never seen before.

“Sorry! We can, um, come back when you’re ready.” Maggie narrowed her eyes at the sight of Supergirl mouthing, “Sorry,” at Alex. She wondered how far back those two went.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Alex mumbled. “Um, Maggie, this is, uh, my mom. Mom, this is Maggie.”

“Very nice to meet you, Maggie.”

Maggie accepted the handshake, smiling up at…at Mrs. Danvers? Dr. Danvers? “It’s great to meet you too…”

“Eliza is fine.”

Maggie couldn’t quite help the way her whole body tensed. It didn’t matter that Eliza Danvers looked nothing like Eliza Wilkie; her mind didn’t seem capable of dissociating the two in the moment. “Right.”

“I hear you’ve been a great help on this case.”

The warm smile threw Maggie, and she glanced over at Alex, hoping for a bit of guidance but finding none. “Oh, uh, I don’t know. I mean, Alex is the one who’s been working day and night on this cure. She’s the one who figured out that there even was a drug in the first place.”

But then Alex was shaking her head and looking at Maggie with such fondness that Maggie felt her heart melt. “Maggie’s selling herself short. Without her we never would have gotten a handle on half of the case. Anyway, um, I’m just gonna walk Maggie out. I’ll be right back, Mom.”

“Take your time, sweetie.”

Maggie followed Alex out of the lab and up the elevator, all the way out to the street. Unable to hold back her curiosity any longer, Maggie blurted out, “Supergirl knows your mom?”

“Oh, it’s—like I said, we’re close.”

“Right.” There were so many questions she still had. Maybe the camping trip would be a good opportunity to get some answers.

“Anyway, I’ll, uh, let you know if we get anywhere before we have to leave tonight.”

“Sounds good.” Maggie turned to leave, but when she looked back, Alex was still standing there, looking even more nervous than she had on the balcony that morning. “Got something on your mind, Danvers?”

“I, um, I might try to tell her. My mom, I mean.”

“Yeah?” There was no need to ask what Alex meant—not when she looked that nervous, not when there was really only one big thing it seemed like Eliza Danvers didn’t already know about her daughter.

“I don’t want to hide part of myself, you know? And I think with your help, I’m learning to see it as my new normal, as something that’s part of me—makes me who I am. Like, yeah, maybe it’s not what she expected me to do or what she thought my life would look like, but that doesn’t have to make it a bad thing.”

Maggie wanted to wrap her arms around Alex and hug her as hard as she could and never let her go. She wanted to tell her how incredibly proud she was and help Alex see how far she had come, even when she still beat herself up about how long it took her to get there. She wanted to take Alex’s hands and hold them in her own and let her ground herself, take strength in knowing someone else was there no matter what—because, god, she was. She wanted to reach up and cup Alex’s jaw and raise herself up onto her tiptoes and press a soft kiss to Alex’s lips and be honest about just how much her feelings had grown and changed over the months of getting to know one another. Instead she contented herself with a small smile and a whispered, “I’m really proud of you, Alex.”


	11. Chapter 11

Maggie left work early on Friday and headed home to throw some clothes into an old duffel bag she’d gotten when she went to Europe with Emily. On her way to the DEO, she stopped at a grocery store, picking up some food that would be easy to prep, a couple large bottles of water, and a few bags of snacks for the ride up there.

By the time she arrived, Alex already had one of the DEO’s SUVs packed up and ready to go, keys in her hand, since apparently she wasn’t willing to arm wrestle over driving. But Maggie figured it might be good; she could stay focused enough on figuring out whatever the weird relationship Alex had with Supergirl was. And she got to play DJ as well, so that was a nice perk. Even better was realizing that she and Alex had similar musical tastes—not that Maggie was really surprised these days by finding yet another way they worked well together. Not that it had to mean anything. But it could. It totally could.

Once they made it to the highway and had settled into a rhythm, Maggie shifted in her seat to look at Alex. “How, uh, how were things with your mom?”

“Oh, they were actually good.” Maggie felt herself relaxing, like the weight of preemptive worry she’d been carrying around with her had suddenly been lifted. “I told her.”

“Yeah? How’d she take it?”

“Good. Lot less, uh, denial than I had.”

“That’s great. But don’t, you know, beat yourself up about it. You spent a lot of years convincing yourself of one thing. It makes sense that you didn’t immediately change your mind.”

“I guess.” Alex was silent for a minute before reaching out and nudging Maggie.” “Hey, you never told me how you came out. If, uh, if I can ask. I don’t…sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”

Maggie wondered if Alex could pick up on the way she tensed. But she also…she found she didn’t really want to shrug off the question and act like it didn’t exist. She didn’t want to have to hide a part of herself from Alex—not when she’d already glimpsed so many of Alex’s own struggles. “You’re good, Alex. I, um, well, I also had a best friend in high school. Eliza. Um, Eliza Wilkie.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”

But Maggie did. She didn’t like talking about it, but she wanted it out in the open. And so she found herself telling Alex about Eliza, focusing on the good moments that had drawn her to Eliza before it all went to shit, thinking back to all the late nights they’d spent giggling and watching movies and choking on cheap cigarettes and even cheaper beer in Eliza’s basement. She thought back to the way things had slowly seemed to shift and settle into place in a way that felt right, even as everyone around her said it was wrong. Because Eliza made her happy like a friend, sure, but she also made her heart race and her palms grow damp with sweat when she scooted closer to Maggie under the blanket and threw her legs over Maggie’s lap while they watched movies. Of course, then Maggie got to the part in the story about the stupid fucking dance.

She dragged in a shaky inhale, taking a few minutes to remind herself that it was in the past, that it was better that she learned how shitty her parents were then than spending years internalizing more and more self-hatred from them.

Shaking off Alex’s concern, Maggie forced herself through the end of the story the only way she knew how: fast and abbreviated and with as little emotion and detail as she could manage.

“Oh, Maggie, I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. No one deserves that.”

Maggie wiped roughly at the corners of her eyes. “No…no, they don’t.”

“But you didn’t either.” Maggie’s breath caught in her throat at the realization of how quickly Alex noticed. Normal people just let it slide, let it be proof of Maggie’s empathy or something, but there was Alex, proving once again the ways she listened when others rarely had. “You didn’t,” Alex repeated, reaching one hand out to rest it on top of Maggie’s. Maggie wondered if Alex could feel the slight tremble to her fingers. “And, I don’t know, it’s a whole lot of years after the fact, but I’m—I’m here. I mean, I can’t fix anything, but I just…I know that you are a wonderful, caring, loving person, and you deserve so much better, okay? And I can’t offer much, but I’m here for you.”

A wave of emotions crashed over Maggie, and she blinked back the tears she could feel welling up. She could barely manage a, “Thank you,” and prayed Alex understood the earnestness of it.

She was grateful when Alex didn’t push for more, letting the silence linger for long enough that Maggie had time to sniffle away the remnants of the tears, then shifting the conversation to lighter topics with little more than the order: “20 Questions. I’ve got one.”

It ended up being Catherine the Great.

Alex figured out Batwoman far too quickly, but revealed, to Maggie’s horror during her second round up, that she’d never heard of Tegan and Sara to be able guess them.

In an attempt to show off at how good she was at catching things in her mouth, Maggie choked on a peanut M&M that she eventually had to swallow whole. From that point on, she stuck to eating normally and let the radio drown out the voice in her head chastising her for the embarrassing mishap. It was then that Maggie learned that Alex could sing and sing well. And damn if it didn’t do something to her.

Of course, that paled in comparison to hearing that Alex surfed, and suddenly her mind was flooded with scenes from Blue Crush that she’d watched, rewound, and watched over and over again a few too many times to pretend that she simply liked surfing as a sport. Not that she was going to admit those things to Alex. Because it was much better imagining a half-naked Alex sitting out in the ocean on her surfboard—all taut abs and defined muscle and movements that flowed so perfectly with the swell of the water and the rhythm of nature. And then maybe, just maybe, she could catch a big wave and paddle all the way back to the shore and ditch the board and ride Maggie’s thigh instead. Maggie shook her head. It was the very definition of the wrong time for those thoughts. Not that it stopped her from making flirty comments and teasing Alex a little. After all, it was nice to have proof that the attraction wasn’t entirely one-sided, even if they didn’t act on it.

Eventually a phone call from Kara interrupted the teasing, and Maggie smiled at the photo of the two Danvers sisters together that popped up on Alex’s screen. Even with the ice cream cone obscuring half of her face, Maggie thought Kara looked familiar. Maybe she’d run into her somewhere…

“Hey, Kara! You’re on speakerphone!” Alex yelled at the car’s speakers, making Maggie wince a little at the volume.

“Oh…cool,” Kara’s voice crackled through the speakers. “I just, um, Eliza got back to my apartment. She told me to tell you that she’s running a longer test on the version you two were working on when you left, but she said that the early results looked promising.”

Maggie glanced over at Alex, who looked entirely unfazed by the knowledge that her sister, a fucking pro-alien rights _reporter_ with CatCo, was talking openly about the DEO and the kind of work she did when she’d nearly killed Maggie for suggesting that the DEO existed, let alone knowing about what they did.

Maggie listened intently as Kara continued talking. It was all so goddam familiar, like something niggling at the back of her brain that wouldn’t quite connect. Maggie looked back down at the phone she was still holding in her hand. The blonde hair. The blue eyes. The little scar above her eyebrow. The closeness. Holy fucking shit.

Still, Maggie was a detective. She knew better than to jump to conclusions without getting more evidence. So when the call ended she walked through her proof aloud, watching as Alex grew increasingly tense, her grip around the steering wheel tightening and her shoulders raising all the way up to her ears.

“Your sister—she’s Supergirl.”

“I don’t—”

“Danvers, I’m not about to tell anyone, okay?” Maggie interjected, hearing the tightness to Alex’s voice.

“I just—”

“I’ve been wondering about the weird relationship you two have for a while now, but sisters—that makes sense.” Maggie didn’t add that it also relieved so many of her worries about trying to steal Supergirl’s girl from her. “And for someone who didn’t like many aliens, you used to get so goddam defensive whenever she came up. At first I thought it was because she works with you guys, and then I was pretty convinced you two were dating, but this…this is definitely a better explanation.”

Alex sighed. “You know there’s about double the amount of paperwork for this as there was for finding out about the DEO, right?”

“I’d expect nothing less.” Figuring it didn’t hurt to ask, Maggie turned to Alex and let her curiosity take over. “What was it like growing up with an alien sister?”

“What?”

“I mean, I’ve got alien friends—and exes—but for the most part, the ones I meet or get to know or whatever are adults. They’ve done a fair amount of intergalactic travel. A lot of them have already been on Earth for a while. What was it like having a kid sort of…crash land in your life?”

As Alex talked, Maggie could see the guilt etched deep in her features even in the dark of the car. She wasn’t so sure that anything she said really helped assuage it, but she liked to think maybe with time Alex would listen and start to forgive herself.

But then they were at the campsite, and their time was occupied with gathering the supplies and locating their lot and pitching the tent and getting a fire going and finding food that wasn’t M&Ms and pretzels to eat.

Maggie tried to withhold comparisons to the last ex she’d taken camping, but she couldn’t stop herself from noting how much more smoothly things with Alex went. Alex was capable and worked without complaint, never stepping in Maggie’s way or refusing to help or insisting that Maggie was doing something wrong if it didn’t immediately look like the picture on the box. And she hummed while she worked, which normally Maggie would find grating, but with Alex’s ability to carry a tune and the soft, melodic quality to her voice, it was more soothing than anything.

When she got back from the dumpsters, having disposed of their trash far enough away from the campsites to ensure that they wouldn’t get any unwelcome late-night visitors picking through their scraps, Maggie found Alex standing in front of the telescope. She grinned, but then Alex looked nervous, one of her hands clasping at her elbow as she worried her lower lip between her teeth. “Sorry, I don’t—maybe you’re tired tonight. I shouldn’t have assumed. I can always put this away.”

Maggie hurriedly shook her head, stepping closer to Alex. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”

“Me too.” It was so quiet, Maggie nearly missed it, but it flooded her with warmth all the same.

Over the next hour, Alex walked Maggie through as many of the major constellations as they could see from their spot, plus a few of the minor ones that were “personal favorites”—a detail that was so adorable and nerdy and perfectly Alex that Maggie had to hold herself back from leaning in and kissing her right then and there.

Over the course of their conversation, Alex ended up opening up about her father, and Maggie felt her heart break for Alex at the use of the past tense. And it wasn’t the same, but Maggie got the pain of losing a parent too young a little more than most. But then Alex was shaking her head and telling Maggie that he might be alive, and Maggie couldn’t quite manage to hold back the shocked gasp when Alex admitted that her dad was at Cadmus.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been silent, trying to find the right words—but god, were there even right words to respond to the news that someone’s family was being held by an extremist anti-alien organization terrorizing the city? “We’ll get him back, Alex. We’ll find them—all of them—and we’ll make Cadmus pay for what they’ve done.”

“Hopefully.”

Maggie nearly cried at the dejected quality of the words, the low bite of self-loathing, of fear about never being enough. “Danvers, there’s no way a woman like you lets them get away. I believe in you—in us.” She opened her arms and pulled Alex in close, feeling the woman she’d thought of as so impossibly strong crumble just a little in her embrace.

“Thank you.”

\---

Maggie let out a little hum of contentment as a warm body curled around hers, an arm falling across her waist and pulling her in closer. She let herself linger in that fuzzy space in between sleep and consciousness. A quiet murmur and the soft press of slightly chapped lips against her shoulder left Maggie wiggling backwards into the warm embrace.

“Morning,” came a voice still thick with sleep, reminiscent of mornings spent on adjoining balconies, sipping at coffee and letting the walls between them fall down.

“Not yet,” Maggie whined, squeezing her eyes shut tightly.

But then the lips on her shoulder were trailing slowly towards her neck then up it, pausing at the juncture of her jaw before sucking on her sensitive earlobe.

Maggie let out a soft sigh, tilting her head slightly to allow Alex better access to her neck.

“Can I make this a better morning?” And suddenly Maggie was acutely aware of the hand that had lain so still on her stomach as it crept its way down, fingers toying with the elastic strip of Maggie’s underwear.

Maggie could only manage a nod and a soft whine as Alex’s fingers deftly pushed their way beneath the thin layer of cotton. Maggie bent her top leg, opening herself for Alex. Two fingers swiped between her folds, and she could feel the rumble of Alex’s low moan against her back.

“You’re so wet for me.”

“Please,” Maggie gasped, her hips rolling into Alex’s fingers and her hand coming up to tangle in Alex’s hair and draw her closer.

In an instant, Alex’s fingers were circling Maggie’s clit, her lips trailing a searing path up and down Maggie’s neck.

And, fuck, she was so close already, could feel tension coiling low in her abdomen and heat welling up inside of her that promised to boil over at any moment.

But nothing happened. Some vague noise flickered at the edge of Maggie’s consciousness, tearing her away from the moment even though she knew there was nowhere she would rather be. But she couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t manage to focus on anything but the sound she couldn’t identify.

Finally forcing her eyes open, Maggie blinked slowly. The warmth at her back was gone, and when she patted down along her front, there was no arm draped around her, no hand tenting the front of her underwear—just sticky proof of her own arousal darkening her gray boxer shorts and a throbbing ache between her legs that Maggie knew wouldn’t be going away anytime soon if she didn’t do anything about it.

The realization of exactly where she was hit Maggie like a crushing weight, and the sound of Alex moving outside the tent left Maggie feeling dirty for everything that had been happening in her dreams. A sickening dread settled low in her stomach. It was early. Really early. Barely sunrise early. And Alex was up and out of the tent. She prayed she hadn’t done anything stupid like grab Alex or snuggle into her or, fuck, moan her name. Doing that aloud once with Jenna was bad enough. There was no need for Alex to have to hear it on a work trip.

She feigned sleep for another half hour or so before forcing herself out of the tent and over to the fire where Alex was preparing breakfast. The wariness slowly receded when Alex handed her coffee and a pancake with no hint of trepidation, and the question about how Maggie slept seemed genuine, not some veiled attempt at telling Maggie that she _knew_. And that had to be enough.

\---

By the time they got back from the lake, Maggie’s chest ached with emotions she wasn’t sure she was ready to face, let alone voice, and she could no longer ignore the waves of arousal that had ebbed and flowed throughout the day, surging up at mental images of Alex’s sparring with Supergirl and the sight of Alex’s well-defined arms and abs, and receding slightly when her body was otherwise occupied with concerns about not tripping and falling in the woods or being stabbed by one of Quill’s spikes.

But sitting with Alex and arguing about peanut butter sandwiches felt domestic in all the best of ways, and she was still riding the emotional high of getting somewhere on the case, and all her words about the kind of change she’d witness in Alex over the months they’d known each other were ringing in her ears, drowning out all those earlier concerns she’d once used to convince herself that dating Alex was a terrible idea.

She found herself asking Alex if she wanted to stay an extra day as a mini-vacation, and she knew that it was probably a bad idea, but she couldn’t find it within herself to care. Not anymore. Not when Alex was looking up at her with that shy smile and those big eyes and nodding.

Maggie cleared her throat. “If we’re gonna stick around, I may want to find the showers here.” She didn’t add that she really needed time away from Alex to get her racing heart and surging hormones under control and maybe deal with the insistent throbbing between her legs before she did something stupid.

But of course nothing could be that easy. Because Alex wanted to shower too, which, Maggie supposed, she probably should have anticipated. No one really enjoyed being coated in mud and sweat and grime.

Towels and soap in hand, Maggie and Alex trudged down the path to the bathrooms they’d found the night before, then down a bit further to the dingy showers. Maggie’s nose wrinkled. It smelled a little bit like her old high school gym did for the first few weeks when they got back after summer vacation—like mildew and disuse and stagnant water.

None of that stopped Maggie’s heart from racing like she was a goddam schoolgirl with a crush, of course, nor did the grossness of their surroundings keep her body from reacting to the realization that a completely naked, soon-to-be soaking wet Alex was standing less than a foot away from her.

A startled gasp caught her attention, and when she looked over she found Alex’s head visible above the partition.

“No peeking!” Really, she didn’t mind. But it seemed unfair if Alex could see when she couldn’t.

“I’m not!”

“I know, Danvers,” Maggie chuckled, masking the slight pang of unwarranted disappointment at the quick rejection. “I’m just teasing you.” A beat. “Though I’m pretty easy on the eyes.”

“And so humble too,” Alex grumbled.

Maggie was proud of herself for not saying anything about how good she suspected Alex looked too.

When she finished with the soap, Maggie forced herself to clear her throat and swallow past the lump that had formed there. “So…you, uh, tried dating around at all?” It was a friendly question. Something one gay friend could ask another gay friend to support them in their coming out journey. It didn’t have to mean anything more than that.

“Um…no.”

“Oh. That’s cool.” Maggie hated herself for feeling slightly elated at the knowledge that Alex was still single.

“Yeah. I just, you know, I’m sort of busy.”

“But not too busy for camping?” Maggie bit the inside of her cheek the moment the unfiltered words slipped past her, and she glanced over to try to gauge Alex’s reaction.

Alex caught her looking before dropping her gaze to the floor and ducking her head under the water. “Well, I—this started out as work.”

“Right. Yeah, that’s true.” Of course. Why would it have even occurred to Alex to think of this as anything more? Being somewhat flirty was one thing; actually thinking of it as a date was another level.

“Plus, I mean…I have fun with you. Why would I go on some shitty date that would take away time from either work or the people I enjoy spending time with?”

“Some people might call dating fun.” Hell, Maggie would call dating fun, even if often ended in less fun things.

“I’m sure it is. With…with the right person.”

“And I guess people would probably say you need to, I don’t know, go out to find the right person.” Maggie was fairly certain she was looking at the right person in that moment, but Alex’s being a right person for her didn’t need to make her a right person for Alex, especially when there was still so much of the world for Alex to see and experience.

“Even if you’re pretty sure you already know a right person?”

Ignoring the weight she swore she could hear in Alex’s words, Maggie shrugged. “People might tell you that you should—you should go check. Because maybe you only think someone is good or right because you haven’t seen what else is out there. The better options someone as great as you could have in an instant.”

There was a long pause before Alex spoke again, her voice soft, barely a whisper. “I think I already have a pretty amazing option. Or, well, I don’t know if it’s an option. But maybe sometimes…sometimes it feels like it could be an option.”

Maggie’s breath caught in her throat, and she tamped down on the swell of anticipation and hope that threatened to overwhelm her. She busied herself with turning off the water, buying enough time to let her anxiety spiral back up, tainting the surging hope with all her fears about what it would mean to let herself have this, to let herself dive headfirst into whatever Alex might be offering.

“Maggie.”

Maggie couldn’t bring herself to look up, couldn’t bear to see the way Alex was looking at her. She took in a ragged breath, forcing it out through her nose. “You deserve options who haven’t been…haven’t turned out to be such a bad choice for everyone that came before, Alex.”

“Fuck everyone else.” Maggie dared to look up at the strident quality to Alex’s voice, the way her words echoed off the tiled walls of the dingy bathroom. “I care about what’s best for me. For us,” she added in a much smaller voice. “I don’t exactly have the greatest track record with the people I’ve tried dating, but I still—I like to think that I care enough to be a good choice this time around. Because this time I want to try, I want to work to be better.”

Maggie wanted to shake her head and tell Alex that wasn’t her concern, but she knew Alex, knew she’d be right back with another argument and then another until she finally found whatever fears Maggie was harboring and broke them down, leaving Maggie without fear, maybe, but without the defenses that had kept her relatively safe all these years too.

“Alex,” Maggie pleaded—for what, she wasn’t quite sure.

The faucet in Alex’s stall squeaked as the water stream ebbed to a trickle, finally tapering off. With Alex’s back to her, Maggie let herself have one moment to crumble, one moment to squeeze her eyes shut and clench her jaw and dig her nails into her palms to keep from exceeding the one moment of feeling she would allow herself on the trip. She could break at home.

The towel that came flying at her face nearly smacked into her, but years of honing her reflexes helped her to snag it out of the air at the last minute, clutching it to her chest at the sight of Alex standing in front of her, her own towel pulled around her and her gaze averted, but otherwise looking as self-assured and determined as she had the first day she’d strode into NCPD demanding that a certain detective get the hell out of her way and stop making trouble.

“Maggie, I don’t care about what your exes said.” Alex held Maggie’s gaze as she spoke, building momentum with every word. “I don’t care that you can be stubborn and spend too much time at work. I don’t care that you make the world’s worst peanut butter sandwiches. I don’t care that you’re terrible at pool but still think you’re good enough to trash talk the competition. I—all those things? They just make me like you more.”

“What?” Maggie let out a little breathy laugh because really, what else could she do?

But then Alex was stepping closer, stopping only a few inches away from Maggie, her gaze darting down to Maggie’s lips before pulling back up. “If it wasn’t abundantly obvious, I like you, Maggie Sawyer. And I’d really, really like to kiss you.”

All the excuses and arguments and reasoning Maggie had been building up in her head for weeks, maybe even months, about why dating Alex would be a bad decision died on her tongue, and she found herself nodding, reaching her free hand out to cup at Alex’s jaw like she’d been dreaming of doing for far too long. And then they were leaning in, and, _oh_. The softness and tenderness of it crashed over Maggie, warming her all the way down to her toes.

When Alex pulled back, she was smiling. She looked happy. Maggie could only imagine that the look was being mirrored back at her a hundred fold.

And she was more than content to leave it at that, but she should have known that Alex Danvers didn’t half-ass anything.

The second kiss was harder, more passionate—all lips and tongue and a hint of teeth that left Maggie clenching around nothing as all the desire she’d tamped down on during the day came roaring back, demanding her attention. It took all of her self control to keep from launching herself into Alex’s arms and wrapping her legs around Alex’s waist and directing her straight back to the campsite where she could reenact a few choice fantasies for as long as their eyes could stay open.

“Fuck.” Alex’s chest was heaving, her cheeks flushed a light shade of pink, and her eyes nearly black with lust.

“Been wanting to do that for a while,” Maggie murmured, forcing herself to step back and put enough distance in between them to think with her head instead of…other parts. “We should probably put on clothes, though.”

Alex looked on the verge of protesting, but finally, with a decisive nod, she turned on her heel and went back into her own stall, meeting Maggie outside the showers a few minutes later with a peck on the lips. Maggie couldn’t resist the temptation to reach for Alex’s hand the way she’d wanted to for too many nights as she led her back to the campsite, then pulled her back into her arms for what she had intended to be a kiss that very quickly transformed into a full on make-out session as hands wandered and moans escaped open mouths and tongues and lips learned their way around one another.

The next morning, Maggie woke to the weight of Alex’s upper body draped across her, feeling happier with reality than anything her dreams could offer.


	12. Chapter 12

After a long Sunday spent trading lazy kisses and pretending like they cared enough about hiking to get dressed in real clothes, as though anything would tempt them away from each other’s arms, Maggie and Alex headed back to National City to their apartment building where Maggie forced herself to keep walking a few extra feet to her own door instead of accepting Alex’s shy invitation to come in “just to say goodnight,” which she knew would involve far more than a few chaste kisses.

On Monday morning, after a brief morning coffee date on the balconies, Maggie debriefed Captain Owens on her meeting with her new informant, going over the details of the immunity deal she’d made with Quill and getting his final approval on it, barring any major complications.

That afternoon, she got a series of excited text messages from Alex letting her know that Eliza’s experiments with the antidote had gone well and that they were going to begin administering low dosages to the aliens in containment to try to wean them off the steroid while keeping them stable.

That evening, she took Alex out to the Italian restaurant they’d discussed meaning to try so many long weeks ago, and over dinner they chatted about growing up, speaking more honestly without huge secrets still lingering between them. They ended the night making out up against Alex’s door, breaking apart only at the sound of heavy footfalls in the stairwell.

Tuesday passed similarly with the exception of a run-in with Kara and Eliza outside of Noonan’s and far more familial enthusiasm for a relationship than Maggie knew what to do with. But there were hugs and excited squeals from Kara that left Maggie disguising a snort of laughter as a cough because, god, even though the appearance couldn’t be more similar, the change in demeanor between Supergirl and Kara was striking.

Wednesday brought the first changes to her schedule. That morning she woke to two text messages.

 **Alex:** Hey, Maggie. I had so much fun last night! This is maybe a little too much too soon, but I happened to say something about you not going home for Thanksgiving, and now my mom and Kara want to invite you over. And I’m happy to have you too, but I don’t want you to feel obligated. But it’d be nice if you could make it. If you want to, of course. It’s at Kara’s apartment, so I could give you a ride if you want to come.

 **M’gann:** How was the meeting? Do you want to meet for lunch?

Maggie responded to Alex first, not wanting her to worry all morning and avoid the balcony out of fear that Maggie had seen the message but didn’t know how to turn her down. She sent back: “If it wouldn’t be trouble to add a place for one more, I’d be happy to spend the day with you. But if you want some time alone with your family, I get that too, and you can assure your sister and mother that I’ll be sure to keep myself fed and occupied.” Of course, one lingering kiss over the balcony railing that morning was all it took to have Maggie dopily nodding her head and agreeing that, yes, it was definitely better that she accompany Alex to Thanksgiving dinner with her family.

Later that morning, Maggie sent a brief response to M’gann, confirming a late lunch since she knew she’d be getting out of work early in anticipation of Thanksgiving. It was some sexist hangover from decades past—women got to leave early before holidays because it was assumed they had cooking and cleaning to do, never mind the fact that they also clearly had an important job to do in the city and away from home—but for once Maggie didn’t complain.

By the time they met for lunch, Maggie was buzzing with excitement and nervous energy. The trials with the antidote were all going well, and she was still holding out hope for that update from Quill whenever it came, and she had another date with Alex that night, plus Thanksgiving the following day.

“Don’t scream everything at me all at once,” M’gann drawled as she rounded the corner to the little pizza shop Maggie had suggested going to again.

“Sorry. Lots on my mind.”

“Good? Bad? Ugly?”

Gorgeous, definitely gorgeous, Maggie thought. “Uh, good. Mainly good.”

“What a nice change of pace.”

Maggie smiled, letting the truth of M’gann’s words wash over her as they headed inside and claimed the corner booth. “It is. Yeah, uh, that meeting?” M’gann nodded. “It went pretty well. He’s definitely easy to spook, but he took the phone and promised us that he’d let us know about the next one.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I promised him immunity for the fights and all the stuff connected to them, but it was a small price to pay if it’ll help us topple this damn ring once and for all.”

M’gann hummed in understanding.

After placing their orders, M’gann turned back to Maggie. “And what of the rest of it?”

“Oh, that antidote is coming along well. I think you’ll see several of your patrons back at the bar and back to their old selves soon enough.”

“That’s wonderful news, but I think you know that isn’t what I was asking about.”

Maggie fidgeted in her seat under M’gann’s knowing gaze. “Er, yeah, um, that’s going well too.” Her fingers drummed against the slightly sticky laminate of the tabletop. She glanced up and found M’gann motioning for her to continue. “We, er, we’re dating.”

“And you’re happy?”

“Yeah,” Maggie breathed out, and how true it was. “I really am.”

“And she’s not done anything exceptionally evil lately?”

“Only if we’re calling devising an antidote evil. Also, um, don’t pry into my thoughts, but there’s a lot about her and her family that I think…things make more sense, you know? And I think she’s got really good intentions, no matter how she’s acted on them in the past. She’s coming along, and I—I trust her.”

“And I trust your judgment.”

“Not with—”

“She was bad news from the start.”

Maggie’s lips curled up into a smile. “That your way of saying you don’t think Alex is bad news?”

The dip of M’gann’s head was barely perceptible, but she smiled as she replied, “Perhaps not.”

\---

That night, Maggie found herself panting and half on the verge of coming as Alex’s leg hooked around her waist, drawing her in closer as her mouth continued its assault along Maggie’s neck.

“We should—we should stop,” Maggie managed, wrenching herself away from Alex as she fought every instinct yelling at her to dive right back in and maybe drop to her knees while she was at it.

“Should we?” Alex’s breathing was ragged, her hair mussed, and she looked halfway to wrecked already. Maggie didn’t think she’d ever found anyone quite so attractive in her life.

“We should.” Neither of them seemed particularly convinced, but Maggie forced her feet to move down the hallway and turn into her own apartment.

But she knew there was no way she was falling asleep like that, no way her body could simply forget the feeling of Alex’s leg around her or the sound of the needy whimpers that fell from her lips.

Maggie eyed her bedroom, biting her lip at that shared wall and shaking off too many fantasies born of rewatches of a very particular scene in The L Word that was helping no one in the moment.

Feeling every bit the part of a hormonal teenager but too damn turned on to be ashamed about it, Maggie dropped to the couch, kicking off her shoes and undoing the button and zipper of her jeans. She slipped a hand beneath the tight denim, her hips squirming at the first pass over her drenched folds, even through the layer of damp cotton. She knew she could do more, could take off her clothes and maybe grab a toy and get as close to what she wanted as she could manage on her own, but somehow that felt a little bit like cheating when she’d forced Alex home with no nonchalant reminders about not caring if she heard the world’s loudest vibrator rumble to life that night.

Instead, Maggie rubbed soft, slow circles through the fabric of her underwear, increasing the speed and pressure as her hips began to jump under the touch, her breathing growing more and more shallow. A veritable photo reel of flashing images of Alex and all the things she wanted to do with Alex cycled through her thoughts as her hand moved frantically between her legs, her back arching, and her head thrown back in pleasure.

And there it was. The telltale pressure deep inside her building to a pulsing crescendo.

Maggie grabbed a throw pillow with her free hand and bit down hard to stifle the noise as she came with a low groan.

When she was convinced she was finally done, Maggie pulled the pillow away from her mouth, tossing it to the end of the couch as her breathing returned to normal and her pulse slowed once more.

She washed the smell of sex off her hands and brushed her teeth and stripped out of her jeans and soaked underwear, all the while forcing herself to ignore the nagging reminder that she’d only taken the edge off when she still wanted so much more.

\---

“It’ll be okay, I promise,” Alex insisted for the fourth time on the short drive over to Kara’s apartment for Thanksgiving dinner.

“I just…what if they don’t like me?”

“When they found out we were dating, they literally squealed and clapped—or, okay, Kara squealed and clapped, and my mom said congratulations, but still.”

“Well, yeah, but they didn’t really know me then.”

Alex squeezed Maggie’s hand before moving hers back to the steering wheel to park. “I promise, getting to know you better has only made me like you more, and I’m sure it’ll be the same for them.” Alex shrugged. “Besides, I was always the resident asshole in the family when Kara brought dates home, so you’re getting the friendliest possible audience with those two.”

Maggie let out a snort of laughter and shook her head. “Why does that not surprise me in the slightest?”

“Oh hush. Make yourself useful and grab the wine from the backseat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Maggie forced herself to stay calm and keep her breathing even as they traipsed into the building and rode the elevator up to Kara’s floor. She was greeted at the door by tight hugs and warm welcomes and not the slightest hint of wariness. As she was put to work setting the table, Maggie felt her earlier worries slipping away, and by the time they were seated around the table talking about what they were all thankful for that year, Maggie’s smile was genuine.

While they ate, Maggie alternated between observing the family dynamics, noting the few times Alex seemed to tense then relax, and answering questions being sent her way about her job and how she met Alex and what they did on the camping trip and how they finally ended up dating—an adverb she made a note to ask Alex about later.

A buzz from Alex’s phone caught Maggie’s attention, and she felt her eyes widen when she saw that it was the burner phone Alex plucked out of her pocket. With a nod of confirmation from Alex, they excused themselves from the table, finding the address, date, and time of the next fight. Maggie felt her resolve solidify even further as everything slid into place. It was happening. It was their chance to finally topple Roulette once and for all and maybe even get in a devastating blow against Cadmus while they were at it. And they even had a working antidote ready to go to ensure that the lives they were saving wouldn’t simply be lost to addiction and similar schemes once more.

Eliza’s voice pulled her back to the present moment, and she forced herself to push thoughts of the case to the back of her mind for the time being so that she could enjoy a nice meal with Alex’s family. Of course, none of that prepared her for Eliza’s rapid-fire questions the moment Kara and Alex were otherwise occupied, nor did she quite think things through when she admitted to knowing about Kara’s second job.

Eliza, who had, only moments before, been smiling indulgently at Maggie, stiffened, her mouth pulling into a tight line as her eyes narrowed at Alex. “Alexandra.” Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Maggie wondered if she could pretend to have been joking. Or maybe she could yell, “Fire!” and get them all to evacuate and take time to cool off. “You should know better than to tell secrets that aren’t your own.”

The coolness of the tone made Maggie squirm uncomfortably, and she suddenly understood why Alex had been so nervous about Eliza’s trip. Because even if this side didn’t come out often, she could only imagine how it might have played out during Alex’s rebellious teenage years or the way it must have sounded, like cold disappointment, during the years of grad school that Alex talked about struggling through.

“I didn’t tell her!” Alex yelled back, gesturing at Kara. “Kara’s the one that went all protective little sister as Supergirl, and Maggie figured it out!”

“Kara.” Maggie bit back a snicker at the sight of National City’s nearly invulnerable superhero sinking low in her seat, the tips of her ears coloring. “You need to be more careful with your identity. If you act like Alex’s sister in and out of the costume, people will put the puzzle pieces together.”

“Nu-uh! Maggie thought we were dating first!”

Maggie could feel the flush of embarrassment creeping up her chest and ducked her head down, cringing at the reminder.

“Well I wasn’t about to let her think that was true,” Alex shot back, her hand finding Maggie’s thigh as if to demonstrate why. For once, Maggie found the gesture less-than-welcome.

“It would have kept my identity safe!”

“And kept me from getting a date!”

Figuring the bickering wasn’t going to end without a bit of outside intervention, Maggie cleared her throat and raised her hand, watching as the table fell silent to listen to what she had to say. “I, um, it was partially the weird relationship dynamics, but also…you’ve got Supergirl’s hair. And her face. And her voice.”

Everyone was quiet for a long moment, but then Alex and Kara were going back and forth once more as Alex took the opportunity to gloat, and then there was something about Cat Grant that had Eliza rubbing her temples and demanding to know that her daughters were both being safe and smart about their work.

Eventually things settled back down, and the conversation picked back up again—this time without the same reluctance as earlier to talk too much about Kara. No, instead Maggie got to hear _all about_ Kara and Alex’s childhoods. She laughed at the tales of sibling rivalry and Alex’s pouting about how her parents “just had to put us in as many of the same classes as they could, never mind the fact that Kara’s younger than me.” Then there were the embarrassing stories and Eliza’s promises that if Maggie ever wanted to take a trip up the coast to Midvale, she would show her all of Alex’s baby photos, plus pictures from her punk rock stage. Kara’s stories, even as they were told with a bright smile and a dose of humor, were tinged with a kind of wistfulness that Maggie recognized, and she made a mental note to try to get to know Kara better. After all, even if she didn’t always like Supergirl or agree with her methods, she respected Kara Danvers, budding _Tribune_ reporter, and wanted to get to know this hybrid version who also happened to be the little sister of the woman she could feel herself falling for harder and harder with every passing day.

By the time she’d watched Kara demolish almost an entire chocolate pecan pie, Maggie could feel exhaustion seeping into her bones—a fact that Alex seemed to notice as she stretched her arms above her head and offered to help clean up from dinner before they had to head out.

Maggie watched in wonder as Kara zipped around the apartment in a barely perceptible blur, leaving everything behind her sparkling and tidy. Damn useful is what that was.

“And you’ll both be safe getting home?” Eliza asked. “Alex, you’ll drive her back?”

“Going to the same place, Mom,” Alex sighed.

Maggie felt her blood run cold at all the implications that sentence held.

“Oh, er, right. Of course. Twenty-first century and all that.”

Before Maggie could yell anything like: _No!_ or _Not yet!_ or _I’m actually working really hard on not taking a sledgehammer to the wall between our apartments and fucking your daughter amidst the rubble!_ Alex had shaken her head and, voice cracking, explained that no, they were neighbors, that was all.

As Maggie’s muscles began unclenching, Eliza turned to Kara and whispered, “ _That_  neighbor?”

And oh, there it was again. That old, familiar friend: complete and utter panic.

Kara snorted, and Alex looked like she might have an aneurism, and Eliza seemed to be uncertain about what to do with all of the information.

“We’re gonna go!” Alex yelped, spinning on her heels and dragging Maggie out the door to Kara’s apartment, not stopping until they were safely in the car.

Maggie was not inclined to join in with Alex’s laughter. She cleared her throat a few times before managing to ask, “You, um…told your mom about that?”

“No. No, I did not.”

“Then how—”

“Kara.”

“Kara knows?” Maggie’s voice cracked on the words as a hundred and one thoughts hit her all at once. No wonder Supergirl had been such an ass to her. She probably thought she was just waiting to bang her sister for a night.

Alex’s voice sounded equally pained when she finally managed to answer. “She might have been over one day and, you know, heard a bit…”

“Oh my god.” Maggie dropped her head into her hands. It had been bad enough when she thought Alex simply _told_ Kara about it all. The idea that Kara with her superhearing had been there to listen to it… Maggie could feel the overly large meal churning in her stomach and a cold sweat breaking out along her brow. “I hate everything. I can never look her in the eyes again.” In fact, she should probably leave National City. Maybe leave the country. Go be a hermit somewhere.

“It’s fine. We, um, we left pretty quickly.”

So maybe she hadn’t heard the big finale, but she’d still heard, and that fact alone was enough to leave Maggie squirming and debating the cost of flinging herself out of the moving car to escape from the humiliation.

“So, Quill really came through for us, huh?”

Maggie blinked slowly at the rapid shift in topic. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I guess he did.” She made a mental note to tell M’gann and thank her for the help.

“I checked in with J’onn. The antidote still seems to be working well.”

“That’s great.”

“We’ll probably want to organize Thursday’s infiltration as a joint operation between the DEO and NCPD, though we’ll have to go in as the FBI.”

“But of course. Couldn’t let that terrible ruse go,” Maggie laughed.

Alex pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “It worked on everyone but you.”

“No way did it work on my captain.”

“It didn’t have to. He had a need to know level of clearance.”

“Oh.”

Alex snorted. “J’onn will set up a meeting with him sometime this week to figure out the roles we’ll all play.”

“I’m not about to go sit outside in some parked car with another NCPD detective.”

“I wouldn’t want you to. I thought, um, I don’t know, it might be nice to have you on my six…”

“Yeah?” And Maggie knew it wasn’t a marriage proposal or anything, but it felt significant, and it made her feel special because she’d want the same thing.

“I just—this case matters a lot, and I want someone—I want someone I can trust there with me.”

Maggie reached out and brushed her hand over Alex’s, the embarrassment of earlier receding as she felt Alex’s fingers pull back from the wheel to curl around her own. “I want that too.”

The rest of the ride was spent thinking about how they might infiltrate the event and brainstorming ways to get the antidote into aliens pumped full of the steroid and how they would get them calm in the moment when the antidote was slow-acting.

By the time they reached the apartment, the exhaustion and embarrassment of earlier had disappeared, replaced by an enthusiasm about seeing justice done and working with Alex. It only took one grazing touch of Alex’s fingers across Maggie’s thigh for all of that to be wiped away in a hazy cloud of desire, and she nearly slammed her knee into the center console in her rush to clamber over to Alex.

Half an hour later, she suspected she had the center console to thank as the one thing that kept her from pushing things too far too fast, and it was only a desire to give Alex a proper first time with a woman that forced Maggie out of the car and up into her own apartment.

\---

After a long Friday spent at the DEO, Maggie felt good about the coming mission—and not just because she had more fancy technology at her fingertips than she’d ever imagined, but also because it felt like the DEO was listening to her and listening to Alex and starting to make the protection of aliens, not just protection from aliens, a guiding principle, at least for that particular operation.

She wasn’t normally one for hope—too often it set her up to be let down and disappointed—but it felt important to cling to it this time. It felt important to believe that Alex and the DEO really were changing, that there were people out there who would look inside themselves and work hard to interrogate their own biases.

\--- 

After an afternoon coffee date with M’gann that Saturday, Maggie headed out to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for dinner with Alex. She figured she’d keep it simple. Somehow making something fancy seemed to bring with it the weight of an important date—the kind of date that led to the kind of thing that Maggie wasn’t quite sure should happen just yet. Not when they’d only been dating for a week. Even if it was a week of daily visits and nightly dates.

Maggie shook her head and focused on the list on her phone.

Tomatoes. She wondered if Alex thought something might happen with Maggie coming over to her apartment…

Spinach. Should she wear her nice bra?

Basil. Should she get herself off before the date to take the edge off?

Pasta. Did Alex like pasta?

Cheese. Everyone liked cheese.

Wine. Did she have clean fancy underwear? Did it matter?

Maggie was more nervous by the time she left the store than she had been when she arrived. A long, hot shower helped to soothe her anxiety some, and she kept her thoughts occupied with mundane tasks like styling her hair in soft waves and getting her eyeliner just perfect and finding a pair of black underwear and a black bra that went together without perfectly matching so it wouldn’t look like she had planned to get anywhere or had expected anything if it happened.

At exactly 6:29, she grabbed her bags and locked up her own apartment and walked down one door to Alex’s.

Dinner went well, and the conversation flowed as easily as ever, between compliments about the meal and discussion about the case and talk of shows and movies out that they wanted to watch—maybe together.

Not that any of those shows or movies were what Alex put on. It was some French movie, and it wasn’t like Maggie had any objection to subtitles or slow-moving arthouse films, but it wasn’t really helping to distract her from Alex’s close proximity or the way Alex seemed to melt into her side.

They were kissing before the opening credits had finished rolling across the lower half of the screen, and Maggie gave up on the idea of trying to go back and figure out what was happening in the movie within the first ten minutes. She tried to be good. She tried so hard. She didn’t keep her hands to herself, but she didn’t let them wander further than Alex’s upper back either. She didn’t keep her tongue to herself, but she also didn’t let her lips drop to that perfectly smooth line of muscle down Alex’s neck and across her shoulders.

The warm weight of Alex in her lap threw Maggie. There didn’t seem to be any appropriate balance between having Alex straddling her lap and not. It wasn’t like she could ask Alex to hold one leg up in the air. But then Alex’s hands were on her own, placing them on Alex’s lower back, and Maggie couldn’t resist—not when it pulled such a delicious reaction from Alex.

All thought processes deserted her when Alex’s mouth opened wider, her tongue flicking across Maggie’s lower lip and her hands tangling in Maggie’s hair. Maggie swore her whole body was on fire with how much she wanted Alex, how much she needed her. She barely even noticed when her own hands dropped lower, but then they were palming at Alex’s ass and drawing low moans from Alex and causing her to roll her hips into Maggie’s, and fuck if that didn’t do things to her. She gasped as the movement forced fantasies to the front of her mind—fantasies of pulling on her harness and pulling Alex into her lap and watching as she rode her, hips rolling and head thrown back and breasts bouncing in front of Maggie’s face.

“Please.” And Maggie knew Alex couldn’t read her thoughts, but the raspy, desperate quality to her voice was everything Maggie imagined, and suddenly she couldn’t hold back any longer, slipping her hands under Alex’s shirt and letting herself feel the toned muscle she knew came from years of training and dedication and sparring with a fucking superhero.

She barely even noticed as Alex tugged at the hem of her shirt, and it took Alex’s words to have her nodding and feeling as it was stripped away. Alex’s followed not too soon after, and Maggie’s mouth went dry at the sight that met her. She was gorgeous, and Maggie wanted nothing more than to worship very inch of skin. Alex seemed to have other plans, though, intent on her own exploration of Maggie’s newly exposed upper body. She pushed Maggie down to the couch, claiming a spot on top of her with one thigh pressed between Maggie’s legs that left Maggie clawing at the upholstery to keep from wrapping Alex in her arms and dragging her into the bedroom.

Tentative touches gave way to a more focused attention on Maggie’s chest, and Maggie couldn’t keep her hips still when Alex’s warm hands slipped beneath the cups of her bra to palm at her breasts, rolling her nipples between her fingers, the touch gentle enough to have Maggie keening. When Alex lowered her lips to Maggie’s chest, mouthing at hard nipples through the layer of lace, Maggie’s hips bucked up of their own volition, chasing the friction of Alex’s thigh as her body sought out its own pleasure.

“Fuck, Alex.” Maggie barely recognized her own voice. Her hands were tangled in Alex’s hair, her hips stuttering against Alex’s thigh. Alex’s mouth never left her chest, even as her hands wandered down to Maggie’s thighs.

“Alex,” Maggie whimpered, forcing herself to pull back slightly, knowing even one more roll of her hips would have left her coming hard—layers of denim and cotton between them be damned. Her whole body seemed to scream at her, her clit pulsing and throbbing in time with her heartbeat and her muscles still tensed on the verge of a release she was intent on denying herself for the time being.

Maggie’s eyes raked up and down Alex’s upper body. God, she was beautiful. Maggie pulled herself up to her knees, guiding Alex down to her back and pressing reverent kisses all along Alex’s chest and abs and hips and sides and arms.

“So beautiful,” Maggie muttered, her lips nestling into the crevice between Alex’s neck and collarbone.

“Gorgeous.” A string of kisses along the line of Alex’s bra, her lips relishing in the soft skin.

“And strong.” She let her tongue flick out and across Alex’s abs, groaning as they tensed under her gentle ministrations.

“You’re perfect, Alex.”

“Even with—”

Maggie glanced up to find Alex’s eyes, her gaze worried and her mouth pulled tight. She followed Alex’s line of sight down to a jagged scar just beneath her ribs and pressed a soft kiss to it, murmuring, “Because of them.” She let her lips trail along as many of the small markings as she could find, imagining the nights when Alex would tell her the stories behind them, let her in on the kind of pain she had gone through trying to defend her city and her sister as best she could, even with her breakable, fragile, human body. “Because they’re part of you.” Maggie swallowed heavily at the emotions flickering across Alex’s features, the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes. Her hands curled around Alex’s side, sliding up across her stomach to palm at her breasts. “So fucking gorgeous. Every inch.”

As Maggie let her hands and mouth wander, she couldn’t stop the surge of want, but it was more than that. She wanted Alex under her and inside of her and on her tongue, absolutely, but she also wanted to hold her close and chase away all those fears and anxieties built up over the years and promise that she’d never have to face them alone ever again. And that, more than anything, scared the hell out of her. For once, it didn’t scare her to think of the future. No, it scared her how easily it came to her, how quickly Alex had become a part of her life—had become integral to any future she imagined for herself.

“Please,” Alex whimpered, her body straining up into Maggie’s touches.

Maggie pulled back panting, her tongue running across her teeth. She forced herself to take deep, steadying breaths. Because Alex mattered. Because she wanted this thing they had to work. Because she wanted to give Alex everything she deserved, and that didn’t include spending their first night together a little buzzed fucking on the sofa. “I—I should go.”

“Please don’t.”

Maggie gritted her teeth, trying to steel the resolve that threatened to crumble with every second spent in Alex’s presence. “It’s barely been a week, Alex.”

“And? I’ve seen you every single day, so this is pretty much date number 7.”

The laugh bubbled up from low in Maggie’s chest, and she shook her head, pressing a soft kiss to Alex’s lips. “It’s after midnight, and I know we’re both exhausted. I want to do this right, make you feel special and cared for. I don’t want to be half-asleep, groping you through your pants on your couch.”

“My high school boyfriend was fine with it.”

“And did you like your high school boyfriend?”

“No, but it wasn’t because he groped me on the living room couch.”

“At least sleep on it tonight, okay?” Maggie knew her resolve couldn’t last forever, but she could at least buy them another day or two, wait for some night when it wasn’t technically the next morning and she could give Alex all the time and attention she deserved.

“Don’t really know how I’m supposed to get to sleep like this.”

Maggie’s breath caught in her throat as images of a desperately turned on Alex flashed through her mind, and suddenly she wanted to say fuck it to all of her stupid notions of chivalry and rip off those goddam tight jeans and bury her face between Alex’s thighs, not leaving until Alex couldn’t possibly come another time. She forced herself to breathe and close her eyes and not look at the gorgeous woman sprawled out in front of her. “I should definitely go.”

One last kiss and a few promises to see each other the next day later, Maggie finally made it back to her apartment. She toed off her boots and tossed her shirt into the hamper. As she stripped off her clothes, she couldn’t ignore all the signs of her own arousal. Her nipples were still painfully hard, her inner thighs sticky, and her underwear drenched.

She knew she needed something, and something more than the half-assed attempt at getting herself off from the other night.

She pulled out her phone.

 **Maggie:** It was so hard leaving. I really did have a wonderful night.

 **Alex:**  You’re only a few feet away…you could always come back.

Maggie chuckled as she looked down. It was probably best not to tell Alex that she was already completely naked.

 **Maggie:** I shouldn’t.

 **Alex:**  If you say so…

 **Maggie:**  You know this is hard for me too, right?

 **Alex:**  Is it? You make leaving seem pretty easy.

 **Maggie:**  Trust me, it’s not. I wanted nothing more than to carry you back into your bedroom and find out what exactly I’d been missing out on behind that wall.

Maggie second-guessed it the moment she hit send. Maybe it was too much. Maybe sexting shouldn’t come before sex. Maybe she shouldn’t have reminded Alex about all those nights they had overheard. But then her phone buzzed, pulling her out of her rapidly spiraling thoughts.

 **Alex:**  Ha! You missing out on something? You only heard me, you know.

Maggie’s fingers twitched over the keys. She wanted to tell Alex exactly how fucking hot it was to imagine her touching herself, how hard it had been to rid herself of the memory of those moans once she found out whose they were.

 **Maggie:**  If it’s that hard to sleep, maybe I’ll hear it again?

 **Maggie:**  Sorry! Was that too much? I don’t know.

 **Alex:**  No! You’re fine. I, uh, was thinking about that too.

Maggie groaned. Alex was perfect. Literally perfect.

 **Maggie** : Oh really?

 **Alex:** I was debating whether it would be rude to wake the neighbor on the other side from my living room.

No. No, no. He didn’t deserve to hear Alex. He definitely didn’t deserve to hear Alex.

 **Maggie:**  You shouldn’t wake him. I heard he’s mean. You should definitely move any and all activities to your bedroom.

 **Alex:** That so?

 **Maggie:**  Definitely.

 **Maggie:** If you want to.

Maggie waited, heart pounding in her chest as she stared down at her phone, willing it to buzz with a response. Instead there were two knocks to the wall.

Maggie grinned and knocked back twice herself.

Then nothing happened.

Maggie read through the texts, noting Alex’s embarrassment over the idea of Maggie having heard her masturbating. Maybe she needed a little proof of how hot it could be to hear it herself…

Maggie dropped her hand down between her legs, rubbing fast circles along her clit. As her knees threatened to buckle, Maggie let herself fall back against the wall, that thin layer of plaster that was all that stood between her and Alex. She groaned at the thought.

A minute later, she heard a resounding _thud_ against the wall behind her. The moan that ripped through her was barely recognizable as her own. And then she was greeted with a chorus of whimpers and gasps and moans that were almost more than Maggie could handle. Her fingers slipped across her clit, and she wished for once in her life that she wasn’t so wet, wasn’t so turned on, because it all seemed to be conspiring against her when she couldn’t get even the smallest amount of friction.

Desperate, Maggie pulled her hand back and yanked open the drawer of her nightstand, pulling out a purple dildo. She had it coated in lube that was likely unnecessary and inside herself before her mind had quite caught up with her body. Not wanting to miss a sound, Maggie got up on the bed, her knees spread, one hand propped against the wall, holding her up, the other between her legs, pumping the toy in and out of her as fast as she could manage. And _fuck_ , that was better. That was so, so much better.

With Alex’s moans echoing in the background, Maggie bent her thumb just enough to hit her clit with each upward thrust. And then she was coming, coating the toy with a flood of her own arousal.

She had barely caught her breath again when a loud crash sounded from next door, followed by the louder rumble of the vibrator. And suddenly it didn’t matter that she had just come because Maggie’s walls were clenching around the toy and her hand was moving once more.

She listened to the increasingly desperate-sounding whimpers filtering through the plaster, and she longed to go over there and answer those pleas herself. As they built to a crescendo, Maggie felt her own thrusts speeding up without her permission.

“Maggie!”

Maggie’s whole body froze at that. Time seemed to slow to a stop. Her brain struggled to comprehend this merging of fantasy and reality. But then reality came crashing back down around her, and she let herself fall to the mattress, too preoccupied to think about little details like holding herself up.

“ _Alex_.” It was a ragged prayer. “ _Alex_.” A little louder. “ _Alex_.” She was basically chanting it at that point. “ _Alex_.” Nothing her own hand could do was enough. She needed Alex. Needed Alex’s hand, her mouth, her thigh, anything. “ _Alex_.” She was almost sobbing. “ _Alex_.” She gave herself wholly over to instinct, letting her body take whatever it needed from her hands and the toy. And then finally waves of white-hot pleasure were ripping through her, and it felt like she was being torn apart then stitched back together as the world itself seemed to dissolve around her.

Reality came back to her bit by bit, and it was only the knowledge that Alex would likely want some sort of confirmation that what she had done was okay that had Maggie groping blindly around the bed until she found her phone.

 **Maggie:**  I had a lot of fun, hope you did too.

It was the world’s biggest fucking understatement, but she figured if Alex could hear through the wall as well as she could hear Alex, she probably already knew that.

 **Alex:**  I did too.

 **Alex:**  But I’m hoping we don’t always have a wall between us. It’s that or I’m gonna tear it down myself.

Maggie chuckled at the familiar image.

 **Maggie:**  Alright there, Mr. President.

 **Alex:**  ?

Maggie did a quick google search to make sure she was right, nodding when it popped up immediately.

 **Maggie:**  Reagan to Gorbachev?

 **Alex:**  Oh!

 **Alex:**  Nerd.

 **Maggie:**  Pot, meet kettle.

 **Maggie:**  Anyway, promise, no walls soon enough, yeah?

 **Alex:**  I’m holding you to it.

Maggie groaned and thought Alex probably heard it. She didn’t care. She couldn’t care. They’d have waited for over a week at that point. Surely that was time enough for Alex to decide if the whole lesbian sex thing wasn’t for her.

 **Alex:**  Goodnight, Maggie.

 **Maggie:**  Night, Alex.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s the last of the fic. The last chapter was the same plot as Noise Complaint’s final chapter with the addition of a bit more that focuses on Maggie’s role and meeting Elyssa’s brother. I simply don’t have the energy to devote to this after everything, so I’m leaving it at the end of 13 as a happy enough ending that you can pair with chapter 15 of Noise Complaint if you need the mission again. 
> 
> To those of you who have been following and reading and enjoying the fic, thank you. It really did make fandom a very rewarding place to be. However, it’s not quite enough to justify the toll on my mental health that this particular fandom has taken, so I’ll be stepping away for quite some time. It’s one thing to be, yet again, put through the ringer with anons and trolls sending cruel messages and telling me to kill myself on every social media platform I have, which was made worse by the fact that I’m currently going through the stress of moving and starting a brand new job and phase of my life. But it was quite another watching as numerous fic authors, creators, and fans I once respected turned on me in an instant, assuming the worst about me and my intentions without taking 2 seconds to ask me what had happened even as they accused me of doing exact that. It’s hard to watch people whose work brought you into fandom publicly post awful things about you and turn their large groups of followers against you. And while I’m supposedly at the height of hubris and should be able to let those things bounce off my clearly inflated ego, I can’t. I’m human with all the fears and anxieties that go along with it. And more importantly, I’m really fucking done.

Maggie spent Monday working with M’gann to go through the roster of fighters she and Alex had discovered at the masquerade ball all those weeks ago—and, god, was it only weeks? It felt like lifetimes. For each alien species, M’gann helped her to make notes about weaknesses and areas where a needle—even a reinforced one made of some special polymer—would have the best chance of making it through their skin and into their bloodstream or its closest equivalent. She jotted down notes about their defensive mechanisms and abilities that might put DEO agents and NCPD officers at risk, but right alongside those were notes about where they were most vulnerable and how to avoid killing or seriously harming them in the process of injecting the sedative and antidote mixture Alex had prepared.

That night she and Alex made out for three full hours on Maggie’s couch while yet another movie they’d never actually watch played in the background.

On Tuesday, Maggie spent the full day at the DEO, having been given clearance to enter and leave on her own, even though they still wouldn’t let her park her bike or even the police-issued cruiser in the garage. She tried not to gawk as she watched Alex and Supergirl demonstrate techniques for bringing down larger and more powerful aliens, but Alex was in a tank top, and Alex had really nice arms, and Maggie could only be strong for so long. But she managed to pull herself together in time for her afternoon presentation on all the information M’gann had given to her. Even though she could hear some grumbling dissent, overall Maggie thought it went well, and Alex insisted she was great as soon as the last of the agents dispersed.

As the afternoon turned into evening, Maggie watched Alex flit from group to group, ensuring that all of the agents assigned to this operation were fully prepared and clear on what they were and were not to do. Maggie felt a swell of pride rise up in her chest at how readily the agents fell in line and took orders from Alex and how quickly she silenced any and all complaints about the idea that they wouldn’t be prosecuting aliens with otherwise clean records for crimes committed while on the steroids—even attacks that had severely wounded DEO agents—but would instead be releasing them on the promise of good behavior once the antidote had run its course.

Once Alex finally sent the last of the agents home for the night, she walked Maggie out to her car, lingering on the sidewalk next to her.

“Do you, uh, maybe want to come over?”

Maggie tried to tamp down on the surge of arousal that threatened to overwhelm her, clearing her throat a few times. “I, uh, I could do that. You’re not too tired?”

Alex pursed her lips and arched an eyebrow at Maggie. “Are you?”

Maggie chuckled and shook her head. “Fair point.”

And even though coming over didn’t have to mean anything more than making out like they had so many times before, it felt different that time, like there was something crackling between them, the air warmer and their words weightier.

The drive back to the apartment building was filled with stilted small talk, and by the time they parked, Alex was nearly in Maggie’s lap, her voice tight and tinged with a kind of desperation Maggie knew all too well.

“Maggie, if you’re only waiting for me, please—please don’t.”

Maggie dragged in a shaky breath, trying to slow her racing heart and cool the fire that seemed to have replaced all the blood in her veins. “Alex, you…are you sure?”

The answering kiss was hot and filthy—all tongue and teeth—and Maggie had to remind herself that there would be time for that later—time for desperate, messy fucking and sex in cramped cars—but this wasn’t it.

“Slower,” Maggie exhaled, bringing a hand up to Alex’s jaw to steady her. “Let’s go inside. You think about it, yeah? I don’t want you to do something because you think I expect it or because you’re nervous about Thursday or even because you’re turned on. There are other ways to take care of the rest of that stuff.” She’d know; she’d done them all. “I want it to be because you’re ready, and this—with me—is what you want.”

But of course Alex was right there, knowing exactly what to say to assuage Maggie’s concerns and make her feel wanted not just for her hands or her mouth or what she could do to Alex, but for everything that she was and everything that they had.

Then they were getting out of the car and holding hands and walking up stairs that seemed to stretch on forever. Maggie only let go of Alex’s hand to let her fish her keys out of her pocket and unlock the door. Once they were inside, Maggie felt the spikes and surges of want settle into something more focused. This was Alex. Alex who she liked more than was, perhaps, advisable this early on in a relationship. Alex who had talked about not liking intimacy before. Alex who had only come out recently. Alex who deserved to be taken care of and respected and shown exactly what sex could be like with someone she liked and wanted and trusted.

Maggie walked Alex back over to the couch—not the cushions this time, no; they were moving somewhere and shouldn’t settle in—and let her lips find Alex’s. She met each of Alex’s urgent, desperate kisses with something softer, waiting until they settled, finding the natural rhythms of each other’s bodies, learning the cadences of lips and tongues and hips.

As Alex grew pliant beneath her touch, Maggie pushed herself off the arm of the couch and led them to the bedroom, guiding Alex down to her back and propping herself above Alex, grinding into her with her thigh as she pressed open-mouthed kisses to Alex’s throat.

The warmth spreading through Maggie’s veins grew molten as Alex’s hips canted up, her hands groping at Maggie’s ass through her jeans as she dragged her in closer, rutting harder and harder against her thigh.

And oh, Maggie understood that all too well. So she pulled back slightly, trying not to laugh at the pout Alex was sporting at the sudden loss of contact. “I thought it might be nice to get rid of some of the clothing first.”

“Oh. Yeah, um, that sounds better.”

Slowly but surely, their clothes fell away. Or, well, maybe falling away was the wrong image to use when it came to untangling oneself from skinny jeans. It was more like falling in general. But eventually they made it through, and Maggie couldn’t quite comprehend the way Alex was looking at her—like she was something special and beautiful, something to be cherished and appreciated and treated with a kind of reverence. She shook away the thoughts. She’d let Alex have her turn later—if she wanted it. Not that Maggie would fault her if she wanted to wait. God only knows she’d been too terrified to try her first time in bed as a freshman in college with a sophomore who seemed oh so experienced in comparison.

Maggie thrilled at every shudder that swept through Alex’s body, every ghost of a moan or whimper that was half-swallowed by heated kisses. Her fingers skimmed up strong thighs, her thumbs tracing light circles across Alex’s hips, her hands curling around Alex’s waist and up her ribs.

“You still good?” Maggie murmured, nuzzling into Alex’s neck.

Alex’s reply was more of a gasp than anything as Maggie’s lips found a particularly sensitive spot on her neck, but then she was pulling back ever so slightly to ask if Maggie still wanted to be doing this, and Maggie felt her heart clench at the care in Alex’s voice. “I want as much of you as you’re ready to give me.”

With Alex’s jerky nod of her head, Maggie began a slow path down Alex’s body, taking her time to savor every inch—the raised scars and purpling bruises; the lines of toned muscle; the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips. Each time Alex’s hips bucked up into her or Alex’s fingers twisted in the sheets, Maggie felt a surge of pride at her ability to make Alex feel good, and each time Alex whimpered, Maggie felt herself get a little more turned on. By the time her hands were working their way up Alex’s muscular thighs, Alex already looked halfway gone.

But nothing compared to the way Alex looked when Maggie finally touched her, finally found how wet she was, finally got to taste the woman she’d been dreaming about for so many long nights. And, fuck, it was everything she had longed for. And part of Maggie wanted to close her eyes and block out the rest of the world and lose herself in the taste and feel of Alex beneath her, but the desire to see Alex, to watch for her reactions and make sure she was comfortable and see her as she came ultimately won out.

Needy whimpers and breathy gasps filled the room as Maggie’s tongue dragged slowly up the length of Alex’s sex and trailed around her clit before pulling it between her lips. With a chanted out “yes” from Alex, Maggie drew two of her fingers up, teasing at Alex’s entrance.

Before she could think of slipping one inside, Alex’s thighs were clenching, her whole body going rigid. Maggie kept up her rhythm, not changing a thing even as her whole body burned with the desperate need to have Alex coming beneath her _now_. A moment later, Alex came with a strangled moan, her body dropping back to the mattress as a shiver ran through her.

Maggie took in a steadying breath through her nose, willing herself not to come at the sight in front of her and the taste of Alex still coating her lips. One slight, shifting movement across the rumpled sheets was all it would take. She knew it. Instead, she clenched her teeth and focused on Alex, pressing damp kisses to her inner thighs as she slowly reentered the realm of reality.

A loud noise from the pillows drove away all thoughts of maybe sneaking in a quick orgasm to take the edge off.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Alex didn’t look up at her, an arm still flung across her face. “Alex?”

The arm stayed in place. “I’m so sorry.”

Maggie tried to think back over everything. Was it because Alex’s legs weren’t perfectly shaved? She didn’t give a shit. Did Alex think she tasted bad? Maggie would willingly kill whatever dumbass boy ever made her nervous about that. Was it because Alex thought she made too much noise? Or not enough? Honestly, anything she did was perfect. Eventually Maggie realized it would probably be better to ask than to guess and end up making Alex self-conscious about something new. “For what?”

“For…you know!” Alex’s voice cracked, and her cheeks flushed a deep shade of red.

“No, I—I really don’t know.” Maggie felt helpless, her mind reeling as she struggled to figure out what she had missed. “Did you not want me to do something?”

“Maggie.” Alex’s voice sounded pained, but at least she finally let Maggie see her face. “I’m humiliated. I feel like—like some kind of preteen boy.”

“Wha—” Maggie’s brow furrowed, but then the realization slammed into her. “Oh. No. No, no, no. Alex, that’s nothing to be ashamed of, I promise.” Maggie realized for someone who said she’d never enjoyed intimacy, that might have been the first time she’d ever come from another person. It made Maggie both irrationally angry and proud. But Alex still looked humiliated and didn’t seem to believe a word of Maggie’s assurances that there was no shame in pleasure. Part of her wanted to grab Alex’s hand and guide it down between her own legs to let Alex feel just how perfect Maggie thought she was. Another part of her wanted to straddle Alex’s thigh and let her see how much more quickly Maggie could come. But she thought maybe Alex needed words more than actions—at least in that moment. “It was hot.” Definitely not her most eloquent, but it was on the tip of her tongue before she could stop it.

“How? I asked you to come back up here, and then I, you know, made it like a minute.”

Before Alex could fling herself down to the pillows and hide her face again, Maggie cracked a smile. “Who says it’s over?”

“Oh! No, no, of course. I didn’t mean—no, I do still want to try. I mean, I might not be any good, but I want to—”

Oh good lord. This woman. Had no one ever treated her well in bed? Hell, had she never watched porn or read erotica or gotten herself off more than once at a time? “Alex.” Maggie reached out a hand, trailing it up Alex’s arm, over her shoulder, and down to her chest. “You don’t have to be done either. It’s not a one-and-done kind of deal unless you want it to be.”

Alex blinked slowly. “I…”

“I would spend hours between your legs if you let me. I love knowing that I was able to make you feel that good that fast.”

“Really?”

Maggie’s heart broke at the vulnerability in Alex’s expression. “Definitely.”

“I, um, I do still want to, you know…try. For you, I mean.”

A full-body shiver ran through Maggie as her thighs clenched. She tried to play it cool, though she suspected Alex saw right through her. “It’s whatever you feel comfortable doing.”

“Trust me, I really, really want to. I don’t—well, I don’t know if I’ll be any good, but I want to try to make you feel good too.”

Maggie didn’t mention that it would probably only take a few strokes of Alex’s finger or tongue to send her flying over the edge after getting to go down on Alex. “Well, now that the edge is off, what if I give you a demonstration of all the things I like, then we’ll see where we go from there?”

Alex let out a rather adorable squeak as she nodded, but that quickly morphed into a low, keening noise as Maggie’s hands drifted back up Alex’s thighs and between her legs, running up the length of her.

“I like what I did to you earlier, but I also like being fucked,” Maggie purred as she let one finger slip between Alex’s folds, getting an enthusiastic, “ _Yes_ ,” from her. “But only one or two fingers. Though I think you’ll find one or two fingers can do a lot…” She let one finger slip inside of Alex, joined not too long afterwards by a second, both of them sliding easily inside her. “You can fuck me like this.” She thrust her fingers in and out of Alex, grinning as Alex’s hips canted up to meet her. “But you can also try this.” She scissored her fingers inside of Alex, whimpering at the long, low groan that filled the air. “And a lot of people like something kind of like this.” She hooked her fingers inside of Alex, feeling Alex’s walls fluttering and clenching around her fingers. “And I certainly like my clit being touched…” Maggie dragged a thumb slick with Alex’s own arousal up to her clit, rubbing fast circles across it. Then Alex’s hand was wrapped around Maggie’s forearm holding her in place. Her mouth dropped open in a silent scream a moment later as she came with a full-body shudder.

“Fuck. Maggie.”

“Enjoy yourself?” Maggie drawled, her fingers still inside of Alex but her movements slow as she let Alex ride out the aftershocks.

“I just…I want to make you feel like that.”

“You will.”

“But I…I’m not…”

“Alex, I promise you, I’m getting off on getting you off. So if you want to wait, that’s okay. This right here? It’s fun for me. It can be enough for me.”

“No.” Alex shook her head. “I—I want to. It’s not that. I just…what if you don’t…?”

“If I don’t and you want that to happen tonight—not that it always has to happen for sex to be good—then I swear to god, just let me ride your thigh while I fuck you or grind against my hand while I’m going down on you, and it’ll happen.”

Alex pulled her lower lip between her teeth, her eyes going wide. “I…really?”

“Really.”

“That’s kind of hot.”

“You’re kind of hot,” Maggie teased.

“But I…could I try?”

Maggie gulped as she nodded. Then Alex was up on her knees and motioning to the pillows, and Maggie let herself be guided down to them as Alex settled in between her legs, her expression warring between nervousness and a determination that was equal parts amusing and arousing.

“Tell me, um, tell me if I’m doing it right.”

Maggie wanted to insist that there was no one “right” way, but it seemed like it wasn’t the time to try to explain these things to Alex. Instead, she wrapped her hand around Alex’s and guided it between her legs, shuddering at the first pass over her.

“Fuck, Alex,” Maggie whimpered.

“Wow.” Alex’s eyes were wide as she looked down in wonder.

“Do you—do you want to be inside me?” Maggie’s breathing was already labored, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from holding Alex’s hand there and grinding against it.

With tentative touches, Alex found her way down to Maggie’s entrance, slipping inside to the sound of Maggie’s breathy encouragement. The movements were slow and stilted and nervous, but Maggie suspected she could probably still get there anyway.

“You said, um, you said you liked this…right?” Alex pressed in and out a little more insistently.

“Yes,” Maggie hissed, her hips chasing Alex’s fingers.

“But you also liked this?”

Maggie nearly laughed at the way the tip of Alex’s tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth as she focused on remembering her lessons. But then she was a little too busy gasping as Alex’s fingers twisted inside of her. And maybe it wasn’t elegant or that coordinated, but Alex looked so delighted by the surprised gasp it pulled from Maggie and so turned on by the idea that she was the one who did it that Maggie thought it was perfect.

“And you, um, you liked, you know.”

Part of Maggie wanted to shake Alex and punch whoever made her think that talking about female sexuality was dirty, but at least she seemed much less hesitant when she came to acting on it.

A thumb flicked just below Maggie’s clit for a moment, but Alex’s forehead crinkled in frustration as her movements refused to sync up. Before Maggie could insist that it was fine, really, and she could take care of that half of things herself, Alex had ducked her head down and licked straight up from her fingers to the soft patch of short, dark hair.

 _Of course_. Of course Alex Danvers wouldn’t simply give up. No, she was there, twisting her finger inside of Maggie and interspersing her thrusts with steady flicks of her tongue, and then Maggie was coming with a sharp cry, only pushing Alex away when it all became too much.

“Thank you,” Alex whispered.

“What?” Maggie chuckled softly. “I think I’m the one that should be saying thank you.”

“No, it’s just…I never knew it could…that it could be like that.”

Maggie nodded as she drew Alex down into her side, pressing a soft kiss to Alex’s cheek. “You okay?”

“Good. I’m good.” After a minute, Alex cleared her throat, her cheeks coloring a faint pink as she pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “I kind of want to do that again.”

And Maggie couldn’t find it within herself to possibly say no.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr @sapphicscholarwrites and Twitter @sapphicscholar if you ever want to chat
> 
> I'm also in the process of moving, so I'm gonna try to stay on top of replying to comments, but that may not happen until a little later. That being said, I still really love hearing your thoughts and so appreciate everyone who takes the time to read and comment <3


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